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AUTHOh 


SETH,  JAMES 


TITLE: 


A  STUDY  OF  ETHICAL 
PRINCIPLES 

PLA  CE: 

NEW  YORK 

DA  TE: 

1894 


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Seth,   James,   1860.192U. 

A  study  of  ethical  principles 
New  York,   Scribner,   1902 • 

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2  2-  - 


A  STUDY  OF  ETHICAL  PEINCIPLES 


A    STUDY 


OF 


ETHICAL    PEINCIPLES 


BY 


JAMES    SETH,    M.A. 


PROFESSOR   OF   PHILOSOPHY    IN   BROWN    UNIVERSITY,    U.S.A. 


CHARLES    SCRIBXER'S    SOXS 

153-157  FIFTH   AVENUE,   NEW  YORK 

WILLIAM     BLACKWOOD    AND    SONS 
EDINBURGH    AND    LONDON 

1894 


All  Righta  reserved 


x 
.> 


PEE  FACE. 


The  present  volume  is  the  outcome  of  several  years  of 
continuous  reflection  and  teaching  in  this  department  of 
philosophy.  As  the  title  indicates,  it  does  not  profess  to 
develop  a  system  of  Ethics,  but  rather  to  discuss  the 
principles  which  must  underlie  such  a  system ;  and  while 
the  treatment  does  not  claim  to  be,  in  any  strict  sense, 
original,  an  effort  has  been  made  to  re-think  the  entire 
subject,  and  to  make  the  discussion  throughout  as  funda- 
mental as  possible.  My  chief  hope  is  that  I  may  have 
been  able  to  throw  some  light  upon  the  real  course  of 
ethical  thought  in  ancient  and  in  modern  times.  I  have 
been  anxious,  in  particular,  to  recover,  and,  in  some 
measure,  to  re-state  the  contribution  of  the  Greeks,  and 
especially  of  Aristotle,  to  moral  philosophy.  For,  in  many 
respects,  the  ancient  statement  of  the  questions  seems 
to  me  more  instructive  than  the  modern. 

As  regards  the  method  of  discussion  adopted,  I  have 
stated  in  the  Introduction  my  reasons  for  the  position 


Vlll 


PREFACE. 


that,  to  be  fundamental,  ethical  thought  must  be  philo- 
sophical rather  than  merely  scientific.  The  intimate  re- 
lation of  Ethics  to  Metaphysics  necessitated  the  Third 
Part,  "Metaphysical  Implications  of  Morality."  Here 
particularly,  in  the  investigation  of  the  Metaphysic  of 
Ethics,    there    seemed    a    call    for    further    philosophic 

effort. 

The  use  of  two  terms  calls  for  a  word  of  explanation. 
I  have  distinguished  "  Eudaemonism  "  from  "  Hedonism," 
and  adopted  the  former  term   to   characterise  my  own 
position.     Though  these  two  terms  are  often  identified, 
some  writers  have  been  careful  to  distinguish  them  ;  and 
it  seemed  to  me  most  important,  for  reasons  which  will 
appear,  to  emphasise  the   distinction,   and  to   use  "  Eu- 
dc^monism"   in  its   original  or  Aristotelian  sense.     The 
second  point  is  the  distinction  drawn  between  "  the  in- 
dividual "  and  "  the  person."     The  distinction  comes,  of 
course,  from  Hegel ;  but,  in  making  it  a  leading  distinction 
throughout  the  discussion,  I  am  following  the  example 
of   Professor   Laurie   of    Edinburgh  in  his   *  Ethica,  or 
the   Ethics    of   Eeason,'    a    book    to   which    I   probably 
owe  more  than  to  the  work  of  any  other  living  writer 

on  Ethics. 

My  other  obligations  I  have  tried  to  acknowledge  in  the 
course  of  the  book,  but  it  is  difficult  to  make  such  acknow- 
ledgments complete.  I  have  especially  to  thank  my  col- 
league, Professor  Walter  G.  Everett,  for  many  helpful 
suggestions  made  while  the  work  was  in  manuscript,  and 


PREFACE. 


IX 


f 


\ 


my  brother,  Professor  Andrew  Seth,  of  the  University  of 
Edinburgh,  for  his  aid  and  advice  while  it  was  passing 
through  the  press. 

In  the  chapter  on  the  "  Problem  of  Freedom  "  (and,  to 
a  less  extent,  in  that  on  the  "  Psychological  Basis  ")  I  have 
made  use  of  a  pamphlet  entitled  *  Freedom  as  Ethical 
Postulate,'  published  in  1891,  and  now  out  of  print. 


JAMES   SETH. 


Brown  University, 

Providence,  Rhode  Island, 

■August  1894. 


L 


CONTENTS. 


i:n^troductio:n". 


CHAPTER  I. 


THE   ETHICAL   PROBLEM. 

1.  Preliminary  definition  of  Ethics.     What  is  Morality  ?    What  is 

Conduct  ?     Conduct  and  Character   .... 

2.  In  what  sense  is  Ethics  practical  ?     Relations  of  moral  theory 

and  practice    ....... 

3.  Relations  of  moral  faith  and  ethical  insight.     Impossibility  of 

absolute  moral  scepticism       ..... 

4.  Business  of  Ethics  to  define  the  Good  or  the  Moral  Ideal,  by 

scrutiny  of  the  various  interpretations  of  it  . 

5.  Ancient  and  Modern  conceptions  of  the  Moral  Ideal  compared. 

(a)  Duty  and  the  Chief  Good  ;    their  logical  connection. 
Personality  as  Moral  Ideal    ..... 

6.  (b)  Ancient   Ideal   political,   modern   individualistic ;    the  in- 

adequacy of  each,  and  their  reconciliation  in  Personality   , 

7.  Resulting  definition  of  Ethics  as  the  investigation  of  the  uni- 

fying principle  of  human  life  .... 


PAGE 


10 


13 


15 


18 


20 


CHAPTER  11. 


THE  METHOD   OF  ETHICS. 


1.  The  Method  of  Ethics  philosophical  rather  than  scientific 

2.  The  Physical  and  Biological  Methods     . 

3.  The  Psychological  Method  .... 


21 
,22 
.23 


xu 


CONTENTS. 


CONTENTS. 


Xlll 


4.  The  Historical  Method   ....•• 

5.  Ethics  as  an  "  inexact  "  science  .  .  •  •  • 

6.  The  Metaphysical  Method  .  .  •  •  • 

7.  Relation  of  Ethics  to  Theologj'  .  .  .  •  • 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL  BASIS. 

1.  Necessity  of  psychological  basis  ;  an  inadequate  view  of  human 

life  rests  upon  an  inadequate  view  of  human  nature 

2.  Voluntary  activity  presupposes  involuntary ;  various  forms  of 

the  latter       ...••• 

3.  Voluntary  activity,  how  distinguished  from  involuntary  ;  voli 

tion  as  control  of  impulsive  and  instinctive  tendencies  ;  con 
trast  of  animal  and  human  life 

4.  The  process  of  volition :   its  various  elements,  (a)  pause  ;   (6) 

deliberation  ;  (c)  choice  .... 

5.  Nature  and  character.     Eflfort.     Second  nature 

6.  Limitations   of  volition:    (a)  Economy.     (&)  Continuity,     (c 

Fixity  of  character    ,  .  .  •  • 

7.  Intellectual  elements  in  volition  :  (a)  Conception.     (6)  Memory 

(c)  Imagination  .  .  .  •  • 

8.  Will  and  Feeling.     Is  pleasure  the  object  of  choice  ?     . 


1.  {A)  Pure  Hedonism,  or  Cyrenaicism       .  .  .  • 

2.  {B)  Modified  Hedonism  :  (a)  Ancient,  or  Epicureanism 

3.  (6)  Modern  Hedonism,  or  Utilitarianism.     Its  chief  variations 

from  Ancient:  (1)  Optimistic  v.  Pessimistic.     (2)  Altruistic 
V.  Egoistic.     (3)  Qualitative  v.  Quantitative . 

4.  (c)  Evolutional  Utilitarianism    .  .  .  .  • 

5.  {d)  Rational  Utilitarianism         .  .  .  •  • 


24 
27 
28 
32 


35 
38 

39 

44 

48 

52 

60 
65 


PAKT    I. 

THE  MORAL  IDEAL. 

Types  of  Ethical  Theory:  Hedonism,  Rigorism,  Eud^monism        77 


CHAPTER  I. 

hedonism,  or  the  ethics  of  sensibility. 
I. — Development  of  the  Theory. 


81 

87 


94 
101 
110 


m- 


II. — Critical  Estimate  of  Hedonism. 

6.  (a)  Its  psychological  inadequacy  .... 

7.  (b)  Its  inadequate  interpretation  of  Character  . 

8.  (c)  Its  resolution  of  Virtue  into  Expediency 

9.  (d)  Its  account  of  Duty  .  .  .  .  .     •        . 

10.  (e)  Failure  of  Sensibility  to  provide  the  principle  of  its  own 

distribution.     (1)  Within  the  individual  life.     (2)  Between 
the  individual  and  society       ..... 

11.  (/)  The  final  metaphysical  alternative    .... 

12.  The  merit  and  demerit  of  Hedonism      .... 


CHAPTER   IL 

rigorism,  or  the  ethics  of  reason. 

1.  Rigorism  :  its  rational  and  idealistic  standpoint.    Its  two  forms 

— extreme  and  moderate         ..... 

2.  {A)  Extreme  Rigorism,     (a)  Ancient :  (a)  Cynicism.     {$)  Stoi- 

cism. How  it  dififers  from  Cynicism:  (1)  Idealism  v. 
Naturalism.  (2)  Cosmopolitanism  v.  Individualism.  (3) 
The  Stoic  Melancholy  ..... 

3.  (&)  Modern  :  (o)  Christian  Asceticism     .... 

4.  (3)  Kantian  Transcendentalism  ..... 

5.  Criticism  of  Extreme  Rigorism,  and  transition  to  Moderate 

6.  {B)  Moderate  Rigorism,     (a)  Its  beginnings  in  Greek  philosophy 

7.  (b)  Its  modern  expressions,     (a)  Butler's  theory  of  Conscience 

8.  Criticism  of  Butler's  theory        .  .  .  .  . 

9.  {$)  Intuitionism.     Its  divergences  from  Butler.     Its  defects     . 

10.  The  service  of  Rigorism  to  ethical  theory 

11.  Transition  to  Eudsemonism        ..... 


CHAPTER    IIL 
eud^monism,  or  the  ethics  of  personality. 

1.  The  Ethical  Dualism.     Its  theoretical  expression 

2.  Its  practical  expression  .... 

3.  Attempts  at  reconciliation 

4.  The  solution  of  Christianity 

5.  The  ethical  problem  :  the  meaning  of  Self-realisation 

6.  Definition  of  Personality :  the  Individual  and  the  Person 


115 
119 
122 
125 


129 
145 
147 


152 


155 
163 
165 
167 
173 
174 
180 
183 
189 
191 


193 
196 
198 
199 
203 
205 


XIV 


CONTENTS. 


7.  The  rational  or  personal  self  :  its  intellectual  and  ethical  funo 

tions  compared 

8.  The  sentient  or  individual  self    . 

9.  "  Be  a  Person  "  . 

10.  "  Die  to  live."     Meaning  of  "  Self-sacrifice  " 

11.  Pleasure  and  Happiness  . 

12.  Egoism  and  Altruism      ... 

13.  The  ethical  significance  of  Law  :  the  meaning  of  Duty.   Animal 

"innocence"  and  "knowledge  of  good  and  evil."     Various 
forms  of  Law.     Its  absoluteness         .  .  .  • 

14.  Expressions    of    Eudsemonism :    (a)   in   Philosophy.      Butler. 

Hegel.     Plato.     Aristotle       .  .  .  .  • 

15.  (6)  In  Literature  ..•••• 


PART    IT. 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 

Introductory.    Virtues  and  Duties.     The  Unity  of  the  Moral 
Life    ...••••• 


207 
210 
211 
213 
216 
217 


219 

226 
237 


249 


CHAPTER    L 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   IL 

THE     SOCIAL     LIFE. 

I. — The  Social  Virtues :  Justice  and  Benevolence. 

1.  The  relation  of  the  social  to  the  individual  life  . 

2.  Social  virtue — its  nature  and  its  limit    .... 

3.  Its  two  aspects,  negative  and   positive:   Justice  and  Benevo- 

lence.    Their  mutual  relations  and  respective  spheres 

4.  Benevolence    ....... 

5.  Benevolence  and  Culture     ..... 

n. — TJie  Social  Orgaiiisation  of  Life:  the  Ethical  Basis  and 

Functions  of  the  State, 

6.  The  social  organisation  of  Hfe :  the  ethical  institutions  :  Society 

and  the  State  ..... 

7.  Is  the  State  an  End-in-itself  ?     . 

8.  The  ethical  basis  of  the  State     .... 

9.  The  limit  of  State  action  .  ... 

10.  The  ethical  functions  of  the  State  :    (a)  Justice 

11.  (6)  Benevolence  ...... 

Note.  The  Theory  of  Punishment 


XV 


283 
286 

288 
292 
295 


297 
304 

307 
313 
315 
324 
333 


THE   INDIVIDUAL   LIFE. 

I. — Temperance,  or  Self-discipline. 

1.  Its  fundamental  importance        .  . 

2.  Its  negative  aspect  .  .  .  •  • 

3.  Relation  of  negative  to  positive  aspect  . 

4.  Its  positive  aspect  .  .  .  •  • 

II. — Culture,  or  Self-development. 

5.  Its  fundamental  importance       .  .  .  • 

6.  Meaning  of  Culture         ..... 

7.  The  place  of  physical  culture      .... 

8.  The  individual  nature  of  Self -development 

9.  Necessity  of  transcending  our  individuality.     The  ideal  life 

10.  Dangers  of  Moral  Idealism  .... 

11.  Ethical  supremacy  of  the  moral  Ideal    .  ... 

12.  Culture  and  Philanthropy  .... 

13.  Self-reverence.     The  dignity  and  sohtude  of  Personality 


251 
253 
255 

257 


258 
259 
260 
262 
265 
268 
273 
276 
279 


PART    III. 

METAPHYSICAL  IMPLICATIONS  OF  MORALITY. 

The  Three  Problems  of   the  Metaphysic   of  Ethics  ;    their 

Mutual  Relations  ......      341 


CHAPTER   L 

THE   PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM. 

1.  Statement  of  the  problem  ..... 

2.  The  "  moral  method  "     . 

3.  The  "  reconciling  project "..... 

4.  Definition  of  moral  Freedom  :  its  limitations     . 

5.  The  resulting  metaphysical  problem.     The  problem  of  Freedom 

is  the  problem  of  Personality.     The  alternative  solutions — 
the  empirical  and  the  transcendental 


345 
350 
354 
357 


359 


XVI 


CONTENTS. 


6.  The  transcendental  solution        .  .  .  .  • 

7.  Difficulties  of  the  transcendental  solution  :    (a)  psychological 

difficulty  ofifered  by  the  ''presentational "  theory  of  Will      . 

8.  (6)  metaphysical  difficulty  of  Transcendentalism  itself.     (1)  In 

Kantianism,  an  empty  and  unreal  Freedom  . 

9.  (2)  In  Hegelianism,  a  new  Determinism,     (i.)  The  Self  =  the 

character,     (ii.)  The  Self  =  God         .  .  .  . 

10.  Resulting  conception  of  Freedom  .... 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE    PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 

1.  The  necessity  of  the  theological  question 

2.  Agnosticism  and  Positivism 

3.  Naturalism 

4.  Man  and  Nature 

5.  The  modern  statement  of  the  problem 

6.  Its  ancient  statement 

7.  The  Christian  solution    . 

8.  The  Ideal  and  the  Real  . 

9.  The  Personality  of  God  . 

10.  Objections  to  Anthropomorphism  :   (a)  from  the  standpoint  of 

Natural  Evolution      .... 

11.  {h)  From  the  standpoint  of  Dialectical  Evolution 

12.  Intellect ualism  and  Moralism  :  Reason  and  Will 


363 

366 

376 

379 
386 


389 
393 
397 
402 
408 
410 
416 
417 
423 

426 
431 
441 


INTRODUCTION 


CHAPTER   III. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   IMMORTALITY. 

1.  The  alternatives  of  thought 

2.  Immortality  as  the  implication  of  Morality 

3.  Personal  Immortality      .... 


447 
448 
454 


CHAPTER    I. 


THE    ETHICAL    PEOBLEM. 


1.  Ethics,  or  Moral  Philosophy,  is  the  Philosophy  of 
Morality  or  Conduct.  A  preliminary  notion  of  what 
is  meant  by  these  terms  will  serve  to  bring  out  the 
nature  of  the  inquiry  on  which  we  are  entering. 

"  Morality "  is  described  by  Locke  as  "  the  proper 
science  and  business  of  mankind  in  general."  In  the 
same  spirit  Aristotle  says  that  the  task  of  Ethics  is  the 
investigation  of  the  peculiar  and  characteristic  function 
of  man — the  activity  {ivepyeca),  with  its  corresponding 
excellence  (dperr]),  of  man  as  man.  And  "  can  we  sup- 
pose that,  while  a  carpenter  and  a  cobbler  each  has  a 
function  and  a  business  of  his  own,  man  has  no  business 
and  no  function  assigned  him  by  nature?"^  Morality 
might  in  this  sense  be  called  the  universal  and  character- 
istic element  in  human  activity,  its  human  element  par  ex- 
celleTice,  as  distinguished  from  its  particular,  technical,  and 
accidental  elements.  Not  that  the  moral  is  a  smaller  and 
sacred  sphere  within  the  wider  spheres  of  secular  interests 
and  activities.  It  is  rather  the  all-inclusive  sphere  of  human 

1  Nic.  Eth.,  i.  7,  11. 


Prelimin- 
ary defiui- 
tiou  of 
Ethics. 


What  is 
Morality  ? 


4 


INTRODUCTION. 


What  is 
Conduct  ? 
Conduct 
and 
Character. 


i 
.1 


life,  the  universal  form  which  embraces  its  most  varied 
contents.     It  is  that  in  presence  of  which  all  differences 
of  age  and  country,  rank  and  occupation,  disappear,  and 
the  man  stands  forth  in  all  the  unique  and  intense  signi- 
ficance of  his  human  nature.     Morality  is  the  great  level- 
ler ;  life,  no  less  than  death,  makes  all  men  equal.  We  may 
be  so  lost  in  the  minute  details  and  distracting  shows  of 
daily  life  that  we  cannot  see  the  grand  uniformity  in  out- 
line of  our  human  nature  and  our  human  task ;  here,  as 
elsewhere,  we  are  apt  to  lose  the  wood  in  the  trees.     But 
at  times  this  uniformity  is  brought  home  to  us  with  start- 
lino-  clearness,  and  we  discover,  beneath  the  utmost  diver- 
sity  of  worldly  circumstance   and  outward   calling,  our 
common  nature  and  our  common  task.     The  delineation 
of  this  common  human  task,  of  this  "  proper  business  of 
mankind  in  general,"  is  the  endeavour  of  ethical  philo- 
sophy. 

Matthew  Arnold  was  fond  of  calling  conduct  "three- 
fourths  of  life."  I  suppose  the  other  fourth  was  the  pro- 
vince of  the  intellectual  and  aesthetic  as  distinguished 
from  the  moral  life.  But  when  truly  conceived,  as  expres- 
sive of  character,  conduct  is  the  whole  of  life.  As  there 
is  no  action  which  may  not  be  regarded  as,  directly  or  in- 
directly, an  exponent  of  character,  so  there  is  no  most 
secret  thought  or  impulse  of  the  mind  but  manifests  itself 
in  the  life  of  conduct.  If,  however,  with  Spencer,  we  ex- 
tend the  term  "  conduct "  so  as  to  cover  merely  mechanical 
as  well  as  reflex  organic  movements,  then  we  must  limit 
the  sphere  of  Ethics  to  "  conduct  as  the  expression  of  char- 
acter." But,  in  the  sense  indicated,  the  "  conduct  of  life  " 
may  be  taken  as  synonymous  with  "  morality."    Such  con- 


THE    ETHICAL    PROBLEM.  5 

duct  embraces  the  life  of  intellect  and  emotion,  as  well  as 
that  which  is,  in  a  narrower  sense,  called  "  practice  " — the 
life  of  overt  activity.  Man's  life  is  one,  in  its  most  diverse 
phases ;  one  full  moral  tide  runs  through  them  all. 

But  let  us  analyse  conduct  a  little  more  closely.  Spen- 
cer defines  it  as  "  the  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends,"  and  we 
may  say  it  is  equivalent  to  "  purposive  activity,"  or  more 
strictly,  in  conformity  with  what  has  just  been  said,  "  con- 
sciously purposive  activity."  It  is  the  element  of  purpose, 
the  choice  of  ends  and  of  the  means  towards  their  accom- 
plishment, that  constitutes  conduct ;  and  it  is  this  inner 
side  of  conduct  that  we  are  to  study.  Now,  choice  is  an 
act  of  will.  But  since  each  choice  is  not  an  isolated  act  of 
will,  but  the  several  choices  constitute  a  continuous  and 
connected  series,  and  all  together  form,  and  in  turn  result 
from,  a  certain  settled  habit  or  trend  of  will,  a  certain 
type  of  character,  we  may  say  that  conduct  is  the  ex- 
pression of  character  in  activity.  Activity  which  is  not 
thus  expressive  is  not  conduct ;  and  since  "  a  will  that 
wills  nothing  is  a  chimera,"  and  a  will  which  has  not 
acquired  some  tendency  in  its  choice  of  activities  is  no  less 
chimerical,  we  may  add  that  there  is  no  character  without 
conduct. 

Conduct,  therefore,  points  to  character,  or  settled  habit 
of  will.  But  will  is  here  no  mere  faculty,  it  is  a  man's 
"  proper  self."  The  will  is  the  self  in  action ;  and  in  order 
to  act,  the  self  must  also  feel  and  know.  Only  thus  can 
it  act  as  a  self.  The  question  of  Ethics,  accordingly,  may 
be  stated  in  either  of  two  forms:  What  is  man's  chief 
end  ?  or  what  is  the  true,  normal,  or  typical  form  of 
human  self-hood  ?     Man  has  a  choice  of  ends :    what  is 


!^ 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

that  end  which  is  so  worthy  of  his  choice  that  all  else  is 
to  be  chosen  merely  as  the  means  towards  its  fulfilment  ? 
And  since,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  object  of  his  choice  is 
a  certain  type  of  self-hood,  this  question  resolves  itself 
into  the  other :  Into  what  universal  human  form  shall  he 
mould  all  the  particular  activities  of  his  life  ?     This  ques- 
tion, in  either  form  of  it,  is  at  once  a  practical  and  a 
theoretical  question.     To  man  his  own  nature,  like  his 
world,  is  at  first  a  chaos,  to  be  reduced  to  cosmos.    As  he 
must  subdue  to  the  order  and  system  of  a  world  of  objects 
the  varied  mass  of  sensible  presentations  that  crowd  in 
upon  him  at  every  moment  of  his  waking  life,  so  must  he 
subdue  to  the  order  and  system  of  a  rational  life  the  mass 
of   clamant   and  conflicting  forces  that   seek  to   master 
him— those  impulses,  passions,  appetites,  affections  that 
seem  each  to  claim  him  for  itself.     The  latter  question  is, 
like  the  former,  first  a  practical  and  then  a  theoretical 
question.     The  first  business  of  thought  about  the  world 
—the  business  of  ordinary  thought— is  to  make  the  world 
orderlv  enoudi  to  be  a  world  in  which  we  can  live.     Its 
second  business  is  to  understand  the  world  for  the  sake  of 
understanding  it,  and  the  outcome  of  this  is  the  deeper 
scientific  and  philosophic  unity  of  things.     So  the  first 
business  of  thought  about  the  life  of  man  is  to  establish 
a  certain  unity  and  system  in  actual  human  practice.     Its 
second  business  is  to  understand  that  life  for  the  sake  of 
understanding  it,  and  the  outcome  of  this  is  the  deeper 
ethical  theory  of  life. 


In  what  2.  Ethics    is    often    called    Practical,   as    opposed    to 

sense  is       xj^^^^g^.^^^  Philosophy  or  Metaphysics.    The  description 


THE    ETHICAL    PROBLEM. 


is  correct,  if  it  is  meant  that  Ethics  is  the  philosophy  or  Ethics 
theory  of  Practice,  and  is  indeed  only  another  way  of  Relations 
saying  w^hat  we  have  just  said.  It  suggests,  however,  theory  ana 
the  question  of  the  relations  of  moral  theory  and  practice.  ^'^^^  ^^^' 
Life  or  practice  always  precedes  its  theory  or  explanation  ; 
we  are  men  before  we  are  moralists.  The  moral  life, 
though  it  implies  an  intellectual  element  from  the  first, 
is,  in  its  beginnings,  and  for  long,  a  matter  of  instinct,  of 
tradition,  of  authority.  Moral  progress,  whether  in  the 
indi\ddual  or  in  the  race,  may  be  largely  accounted  for 
as  a  blind  "  struggle  "  of  moral  ideals  in  which  the  "  fittest " 
survive.  Human  experience  is  a  continuous  and  keen 
"  scrutiny  "  of  these  ideals ;  history  is  a  grand  contest  of 
moral  forces,  in  which  the  strongest  are  the  victors.  The 
conceptions  of  good  and  evil,  virtue  and  vice,  duty  and 
desert,  which  guide  the  life,  not  merely  of  the  child  but 
of  the  mass  of  mankind,  are  largely  accepted,  like  in- 
tellectual notions,  in  blind  and  unquestioning  faith.  But 
moral,  like  intellectual,  manhood  implies  emancipation 
from  such  a  merely  instinctive  life.  The  good  man,  like 
the  wise  man,  "  puts  away  childish  things  " ;  as  a  rational 
being,  he  must  seek  to  reduce  his  life,  like  his  world,  to 
system.  The  words  of  the  oracle  inevitably  make  them- 
selves heard,  yvooOc  aeavrov.  Man  must  know  himself, 
come  to  terms  with  himself.  The  contradictions  and 
rivalries  of  ethical  codes,  the  varying  canons  of  moral 
criticism,  the  apparent  chaos  of  moral  practice,  force  upon 
him  the  need  of  a  moral  theory.  The  demand  is  made 
for  a  rationale  of  morality,  for  principles  which  shall 
give  his  life  coherence ;  and  the  transition  is  made  from 
the  practical  to  the  theoretical  standpoint,  from  life  to  the 


8 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  ETHICAL  PROBLEM. 


philosophy  of  life.      Just  when  this  transition  is  made, 
just  when  morality  passes  from  the  instinctive   to   the 
reflective  stage,  whether  in  the  life  of  the  race  or  of  the 
individual,  it  is  impossible  to  say.     For,  after  all,  practice 
implies  theory.     While  a  clear  and  adequate  theory  can 
only  be  expected  after  long  crude  practice,  yet  every  life 
implies  a  certain  plan,  some  conception,  however  vague 
and  ill-defined,  of  what  life  means.^     No  life  is  altogether 
haphazard  or  "  from  hand  to  mouth."     Only  the  animal 
lives  from  moment  to  moment ;  even  the  child-man  and 
the  vicious  man  "  look  before  and  after,"  if  they  do  not, 
like  the  good  man,  "  see  life  steadily  and  see  it  whole." 
Every  action  implies  a   purpose,  that  is,  a  thought  of 
something  to  be  done,  and  therefore  worth  doing.     The 
individual  action  does  not  stand  alone,  it  connects  itself 
with  others,  and  these  again  with  others,  in  the  past  and 
in  the  future ;  nor  can  we  stop  at  any  point  in  the  pro- 
gress or  in  the  regress.     In  every  action  there  is  implied 
a  view,   narrower   or   larger,   of  life   as  a   whole,  some 
conception  of  its  total  scope  and  meaning  for  the  man. 
The  individual  act  is  never  a  res   completa,  an  indepen- 
dent whole :  to  complete  it  you  must  always  view  it  in 
the  totality  of  its  relations,  in  the  entire  context  of  the 
life  of  which  it  is  a  part.     A  man  does  not,  in  general, 
make  up  his  mind  afresh  about  the  particular  action  or 
consider  it  on  its  own  merits ;  he  refers  it  to  its  place  in 
the  general  scheme  or  plan  of  life  which  he  has  adopted 
at  some  time  in  the  past.     But  such  a  scheme  or  plan  of 

1  Cf.  Professor  Dewey's  excellent  article  on  "Moral  Theory  and  Practice," 
in  'International  Journal  of  Ethics,'  Jan.  1891. 


life  is  already  a  theory,  an  implicit  philosophy  of  life.  It 
is  impossible,  therefore,  to  make  an  absolute  distinction 
between  the  loose  moral  reflection  of  ordinary  life,  and 
that  deeper  and  more  systematic  reflection  which  is 
entitled  to  be  called  "moral  philosophy."  An  inter- 
mediate stage  of  "proverbial  morality"  would,  in  any 
case,  have  to  be  distinguished.  If  every  one  is  a  meta- 
physician, every  one  is,  still  more  inevitably,  a  moral 
philosopher.  Moral  philosophy  is  only  a  deeper,  more 
strenuous,  and  more  systematic  reflection  upon  life,  a 
thinkiifui  of  it  out  to  clearness  and  coherence.  The  re- 
flection of  the  ordinary  man,  even  in  the  proverbial  form, 
is  unsystematic  and  discontinuous;  the  system  of  man's 
life,  the  principles  on  which  it  may  be  reduced  to  system, 
remain  for  the  more  patient  and  theoretical  inquiry  of 
moral  philosophy. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  it  is  impossible  to  separate  prac- 
tice from  theory,  so  it  is  impossible  to  separate  theory  from 
practice.  As  Aristotle  insisted,  the  abiding  interest  of 
the  moral  philosopher  is  practical,  as  well  as  theoretical. 
Wisdom  has  its  natural  outflow  in  goodness,  as  proverbial 
morality  has  always  declared ;  the  head  guides  the  hand, 
the  intellect  the  will.  This  inseparable  connection  of 
theory  and  practice  was  profoundly  understood  by  the 
Greek  philosophers,  with  whom  Socrates'  maxim  that 
"virtue  is  knowledge"  was  always  a  guiding  idea,  as 
well  as  by  the  Hebrews,  for  whom  wisdom  and  good- 
ness, folly  and  sin,  were  synonymous  terms.  It  is 
also  familiar  to  us  from  the  teachings  of  Christianity, 
whose   Founder   claims    to    be   at   once   the   Truth   and 


10 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  ETHICAL  PROBLEM. 


11 


Relations 
of  moral 
faith  ami 
ethical  in- 
sight.    Im- 
possibility 
of  absolute 
moral  scep- 
ticism. 


the  Life,  and  preaches  that  "  life  eternal "  is  "  to  know " 
the  Father  and  the  Son.^     A  larger  and  deeper  conception 
of  the  meaning  of  life  inevitably  brings  with  it  a  larger 
and  deeper  life.    Intellectual  superficiality  is  a  main  source 
of  moral  evil;   folly  and  vice  are   largely  synonymous. 
Accordingly,  the  first  step  towards  moral  reformation  is 
to  rouse  reflection  in  a  man  or  people ;  to  give  them  a 
new  insight   into  the   significance  of  moral  alternative. 
The  claims  of   morality  will   not  be  satisfied  until  the 
rigour  of  these  claims  is  understood.    All  moral  awakening 
is'' primarily  an  intellectual  awakening,  a  ^'repentance" 
or  "change  of  mind"  {iierdvoia).     Moral  insight  is  the 
necessary   condition   of  moral   life,  and  the  philosophy 
which  deepens  such  insight  is  at  once  theoretical  and 
practical,  in  its  interest  and  in  its  value.     By  fixing  our 
attention  upon  the  ideal.  Ethics  tends  to  raise  the  level 
of  the  actual.    The  very  intellectual  effort  is  itself  morally 
elevating ;  such  a  turn  of  the  attention  is  full  of  meaning 
for  character.     A  moral  truth  does  not  remain  a  merely 
intellectual  apprehension ;  it  rouses  the  emotions,  and  de- 
mands  expression,  through  them,  in  action  or  in  life. 

3.  Ethics  is  the  effort  to  convert  into  rational  insight 
that  faith  in  a  moral  Ideal  or  absolute  human  Good  which 
is  at  the  root  of  all  moral  life.  That  such  a  moral  faith 
is  always  present  in  morality,  and  is  the  source  of  all  moral 
inspiration,  hardly  needs  to  be  proved.  Moral,  like  in- 
tellectual, scepticism  can  only  be  relative  and  partial. 
If  absolute  intellectual  scepticism  means  "  speechlessness," 

1  The  central  Johannine  conception  of  "Light"  similarly  emphasises 
the  unity  of  the  intellectual  and  the  moral  life. 


absolute  moral  scepticism  means  death,  or  cessation  from 
activity.  Life,  like  thought,  is  the  constant  refutation  of 
scepticism.  As  the  continued  effort  to  think  is  the  re- 
futation of  intellectual  scepticism,  the  continued  effort 
to  live  is  the  refutation  of  moral  scepticism.  We  "  live 
by  faith."  The  effort  to  live,  the  "perseverare  in  esse 
suo,"  implies,  in  a  rational  or  reflective  being,  the  convic- 
tion that  life  is  worth  living,  that  there  are  objects  in  life, 
that  there  is  some  supreme  Object  or  sovereign  Good  for 
man.  Such  a  faith  may  be  a  blind  illusion,  as  Pessimism 
declares ;  but  it  is  none  the  less  actual  and  inevitable. 
The  ordinary  man,  it  is  true,  does  not  realise  that  he  has 
this  faith,  except  in  so  far  as  he  reflects  upon  his  life. 
His  plan  of  life  is  largely  implicit ;  he  estimates  the 
*' goods"  of  life  by  reference  to  a  silently  guiding  idea 
of  the  Good.  To  press  the  Socratic  question.  Good  for 
what?  and  thus  to  substitute  for  a  blind  unthinking 
faith  the  insight  of  reason,  is  to  pass  from  ordinary 
thought  to  philosophy. 

Now  when  the  philosophical  question  is  pressed,  there  is 
at  once  revealed  a  seemingly  chaotic  variety  of  "  Goods," 
which  refuse  to  be  reduced  to  any  common  denominator. 
"  One  man's  meat  is  another  man's  poison."  If  the  meta- 
physician is  tempted  to  ask  despairingly,  in  view  of  the 
conflict  of  intellectual  opinion.  What  is  Truth  ?  the  ethi- 
cal philosopher  is  no  less  tempted,  in  face  of  a  similar 
conflict  of  moral  opinion,  to  ask,  What  is  Good  ?  What 
seems  good  to  me  is  my  good,  what  seems  good  to  you  is 
yours  ;  there  is  no  moral  criterion.  Here,  at  any  rate,  we 
seem  to  be  reduced  to  absolute  subjectivity.  Yet  the 
philosopher   cannot,  any  more   than   the   ordinary  man. 


12 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE    ETHICAL    PROBLEM. 


13 


escape  from  faith  in  an  absolute  Good.    Like  the  ordinary 
man,  he  may  have  his  difficulties  in  defining  it,  and  may 
waver  between  different  theories  of  its  form  and  content. 
But  any  and  every  theory  of  it  implies  the  faith  that  there 
is  such  a  thing.     This  moral  faith  is  the  "  matter "  con- 
stantly  given   to   the    moralist    that    he    may   endue   it 
with  philosophic  "  form."     He  cannot  destroy  the  matter, 
he  can  only  seek  to  form  it ;  his  task  is  the  progressive 
conversion  of  ordinary  moral  faith,  of  the  moral  "common- 
sense"  of  mankind,  into  rational  insight.     It  is  his  to 
explain,  not  to  explain  away,  this  moral  faith  or  common- 
sense.     That  there  is  an  absolute  or  ideal  Good  is  the 
assumption  of  every  ethical  theory— an  assumption  which 
simply  means  that,  here  as  everywhere,  the  universe  is 
rational.     Philosophy  seeks  to  verify  this  assumption  or 
to  reduce  it  to  knowledge,  by  exhibiting  its  rationality. 
Variety  of  opinion  as  to  what  the  Good  is,  is  always  con- 
fined within  the  limits  of  a  perfect  unanimity  of  conviction 
that  there  is  an  absolute  Good.     Even  the  Utilitarian, 
insisting  though  he  does  on  the  relativity  of  all  moral 
distinctions,  on  the  merely  consequential  and   extrinsic 
nature  of  goodness,  yet  recognises  in  Happiness  a  good 
which  is  absolute.     Similarly,  the  Evolutionist,  with  his 
Well-being  or  Welfare,  sees  in  life,  no  less  than  the  Per- 
fectionist or  the  Theologian,  "one  grand  far-off  divine 
event."    To  lose  sight  of  this,  to  surrender  the  conviction 
of  an  absolute  human  Good,  would  be  fatal  to  all  ethical 
inquiry.      Its  spur   and   impulse  would  be  gone.      But 
Ethics,  like  Metaphysics,  is  a  tree  which,  though  every 
bough  it  has  ever  borne  may  be  cut  away,  will  always 
spring  up  afresh ;   for  its  roots  are  deep  in  the  soil  of 


human  life.  As  the  faith  in  a  supreme  Good  must  remain 
as  long  as  life  lasts,  the  philosophic  effort  to  convert  that 
faith  into  the  rational  insight  of  ethical  theory  must  also 
continue. 

4.  It  is  the  business  of  Ethics,  then,  to  scrutinise  the 
various  ideals  which,  in  the  life  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  race,  are  found  competing  for  the  mastery.  Life  itself 
is  such  a  scrutiny ;  human  history  is  one  long  process  of 
testinij,  and  the  "fittest"  or  the  best  ideals  "survive.' 
But  the  scrutiny  of  history  is  largely,  though  by  no  means 
entirely,  unconscious.  The  scrutiny  of  philosophy  is 
conscious  and  explicit.  Ethics,  as  moral  reflection,  in- 
stitutes a  systematic  examination  of  human  ideals,  and 
seeks  to  correlate  them  in  relation  to  the  true  or  ab- 
solute Ideal  of  humanity.  The  accidental  and  the  im- 
perfect in  them  must  be  gradually  eliminated,  until,  as  the 
reward  of  long  and  patient  search,  the  absolute  Good  at 
last  shines  through.  As  Logic  or  the  theory  of  thought 
seeks,  beneath  the  apparent  unreason  and  accident  of 
everyday  thought  and  fact,  a  common  reason  and  a  common 
truth,  so  does  Ethics  seek,  beneath  the  apparent  contra- 
dictions of  human  life,  a  supreme  and  universal  Good — 
the  norm  and  criterion  of  all  actual  goodness. 

Or  we  may  say,  with  Aristotle,  that  Ethics  is  the  in- 
vestigation of  the  final  End  or  Purpose  of  human  life. 
The  Good  (to  dyaOov)  is  the  End  (reXoc,  to  ov  evcKo),  that 
End  to  which  all  other  so-called  ends  are  really  means. 
Such  a  teleological  view  is  necessary  in  the  case  of  human 
life,  irrespective  of  the  farther  question  whether  we  can, 
with  Aristotle,  extend  it  to  the  universe,  and  include  the 


Business  of 
Ethics  to 
define  the 
Good  or 
the  Moral 
Ideal,  by 
scrutiny  of 
the  various 
interpreta- 
tions of  it. 


14 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE    ETHICAL    PROBLEM. 


15 


human  in  the  divine  or  universal  End.  Human  life, 
at  any  rate,  is  unintelligible  apart  from  the  idea  of 
Purpose ;  the  teleological  and  the  ethical  views  are  one. 
Other  views— c'.^.,  the  physical— are  possible  and  com- 
petent ;  but  we  cannot  rest  in  them  as  final.  The  question 
of  Ethics  is.  What  is  man's  chief  End ;  what  is  the  supreme 
Purpose  in  the  fulfilment  of  which  he  shall  fulfil  himself; 
what  is  the  central  and  governing  principle  according  to 
which  he  shall  organise  his  life  ? 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  moreover,  that  the  moral  life  is, 
like  the  psychical  life  generally,  rather  an  organic  growth 
than  a  mechanism  or  fixed  arrangement.     Like  the  organ- 
ism, it  preserves  its  essential  identity  through  all  the  vari- 
ations of  its  historical  development ;  it  evolves  continuously 
in  virtue  of  an  inner  principle.     To  discover  this  constant 
principle  of  the  evolution  of  morality  is  the  business  of 
Ethics.    The  task  of  the  moral  philosopher  is  not  to  con- 
struct a  system  of  rules  for  the  conduct  of  life— we  do  not 
live  by  rule— but  to  lay  bare  the  nerve  of  the  moral  life, 
the  very  essence  of  which  is  spontaneity  and  growth  away 
from  any  fixed  form  or  type.     Each  age  has  its  own  moral 
type,  which  the  historian  of  morality  studies;   and  the 
hero  of  an  earlier  age  is  not  the  hero  of  a  later.     Neither 
Aristotle's  /i€ja\6yfrvxo<;  nor  the  mediaeval  "saint"  will 
serve  as  our  moral  type.     The  search  of  Ethics  is  for  the 
organising   principle   of   morality,  for  a  principle  which 
shall  explain  and  co-ordinate  all  the  changing  forms  of 
its  historical  development. 

Nor  are  we  to  commit  what  we  may  call  the  "  moralist's 
fallacy "  of  confusing  the  philosophic  or  reflective  moral 
consciousness  with  the  ordinary  or  naive.    The  principles 


of  the  moral  life,  we  must  remember,  are  not  to  any  great 
extent  explicit ;  its  ideals  are  not  clearly  realised  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  plain  man.  To  a  certain  extent,  of 
course,  the  ethical  life  is  a  thinking  life,  up  to  a  certain 
point  it  must  understand  itself ;  it  is  not  to  be  pictured  as 
parallel  with  the  physical  life,  which  proceeds  in  entire 
ignorance  of  its  own  principles.  But  its  thought  need  not 
(JO  far,  and  it  is  not  the  business  of  Ethics  to  substitute 
its  explicit  theory,  its  rational  insight  and  comprehension, 
for  the  implicit  and  naive  moral  intelligence  of  ordinary 
life.  Nor  is  the  proof  of  an  ethical  theory  to  be  sought  in 
the  discovery,  in  the  ordinary  moral  consciousness  of  any 
age  or  community,  of  such  a  theory  of  its  life.  That  life 
is  conducted  rather  by  "  tact,"  by  a  practical  insight  of 
which  it  cannot  give  the  grounds.  This  was  the  feeling 
even  of  a  Socrates,  who  attributed  such  unaccountable 
promptings  to  the  unerring  voice  of  the  divinity  that 
guided  his  destiny.  The  moral  life  precipitates  itself  in 
these  unformulated  principles  of  action;  we  acquire  a 
faculty  of  quick  and  sure  moral  judgment,  as  we  acquire  a 
similar  faculty  of  scientific  or  artistic  judgment.  This 
ability  comes  with  "  the  years  that  bring  the  philosophic 
mind  " ;  it  is  the  ripe  fruit  of  the  good  life. 

5.  Modern  moralists,  it  is  true,  prefer  to  raise  the  ques- 
tion in  another  form,  and  to  ask,  not  "What  is  man's 
chief  End?"  but  "What  is  man's  Duty;  what  is  the 
supreme  Law  of  his  life  ? "  The  "  right "  is  the  favourite 
category  of  modern  Ethics,  as  the  "  good  "  is  that  of  ancient. 
But  this  is,  truly  understood,  only  another  form  of  the 
same  question.    Eor  the  Good  or  chief  End  of  man  does 


Ancient 
and  Mod- 
ern concep- 
tions of  the 
Moral  Ideal 
compared. 
(a)  Duty 
and  the 
Chief 
Good  ; 
their  log- 
ical con- 
nection. 


16 


INTRODUCTION. 


Personality  not  fulfil  itself,  as  the  divine  Purpose  in  nature  does ; 
idear^       man  is  not,  or,  at  least,  cannot  regard  himself  as,  a  mere 
instrument  or  vehicle  of  the  realisation  of  the  Purpose  in 
his  life.    His  Good  presents  itself  to  him  as  an  Ideal,  which 
he  may  or  may  not  realise  in  practice ;  that  is  what  dis- 
tinguishes the  moral  from  the  natural  life.     The  Law  of 
man's  life  is  not,  like  that  of  nature's,  inevitable ;  it  may 
be  broken  as  well  as  kept ;  that  is  why  we  call  it  a  moral 
law.    While  a  physical  law  or  a  "  law  of  nature  "  is  simply 
a  statement  of  that  which  always  happens,  a  moral  law  is 
that  which  ought  to  be,  but  perhaps  never  strictly  is.     So 
that,  while  the  ethical  category  has  changed  from  the  Sum- 
mum  Bonum  of  the  ancients  to  the  Duty  and  Law  of  the 
moderns,  the  underlying  conception  is  the  same,  and  the 
logic  of  the  transition  from  the  one  category  to  the  other 
is  easily  understood.     Perhaps  the  conception  of  a  Moral 
Ideal  may  be  taken  as  combining  the  classical  idea  of  Chief 
Good  or  End  with  the  modern  idea  of  Law,  and  its  antith- 
esis between  Duty  and  attainment,  between  the  Ought- 
to-be  and  the  Is. 

For  both  the  ancient  and  the  modern  conceptions  of  the 
Moral  Ideal  have  a  tendency  to  imperfection ;  the  former 
is  apt  to  be  an  external,  the  latter  a  mechanical  view.  The 
ancients  were  apt  to  regard  the  End  as  something  to  be 
acquired  or  got,  rather  than  as  an  ideal  to  be  attained. 
But,  as  Aristotle  and  Kant  have  both  insisted,  man  must 
be  his  own  End  ;  he  cannot  subordinate  himself  as  a  means 
to  any  further  end.  The  moral  ideal  is  an  ideal  of  char- 
acter. In  ancient  philosophy  we  can  trace  a  gradual  pro- 
gress towards  this  more  adequate  view.  As  the  conception 
of  Happiness  is  gradually  deepened,  it  is  seen  to  consist 


THE   ETHICAL   PROBLEM. 


17 


i 

11 


in  an  inner  rather  than  an  outer  well-being,  in  a  life  of 
activity  rather  than  in  a  state  of  dependence  on  external 
goods,  in  a  settled  condition  or  habit  of  will  rather  than 
in  any  outward  circumstances  or  fortune.     The  true  for- 
tune of  the  soul,  it  is  felt,  is  in  its  own  hands,  both  to 
attain  and  to  keep.      The  modern  or  Christian  view  is 
more  spiritual  and  idealistic.     "  Seek  first  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  His  righteousness,  and  all  these  things  shall  be 
added  unto  you ; "  "  take   no   thought  for  the  morrow." 
The  claims   of  righteousness  become  paramount.      "Do 
the   right,   though   the  heavens   fall."     The   danger   for 
this  view  is   the  tendency  so  to  exaggerate  the  notion 
of  Law  as  to   conceive  of  life  as  mere  obedience  to   a 
code  of  rules  or  precepts.      Such  a  view  of  morality  is 
mechanical.    Life  according  to  rule  is  as  inadequate  a  con- 
ception as  the  pursuit  of  an  external  end ;  and  it  is  only 
gradually  that  we  have  regained  the  classical  conception 
of  ethical  "  good,"  and  have  learned  once  more  to  think  of 
the  moral  life  as  a  fulfilment  rather  than  a  negation  and 
restraint,  and  to  place  law  in  its  true  position  as  a  means 
rather  than  an  end. 

The  ancient  and  the  modern  views  of  the  moral  ideal 
are  thus  alike  inadequate  and  mutually  complementary ; 
they  must  be  harmonised  in  a  deeper  view.  The  End  of 
life  is  an  ideal  of  character,  to  be  realised  by  the  indi- 
vidual, and  his  attitude  to  it  is  one  of  obligation  or  duty 
to  realise  it.  It  is  something  not  to  be  got  or  to  be  done, 
but  to  he  or  to  hecome.  It  is  not  to  be  sought  without,  but 
within ;  it  is  the  man  himself,  in  that  true  or  essential 
nature,  in  the  realisation  of  which  is  fulfilled  his  duty  to 
others  and  to  God.    All  duty  is  ultimately  duty  to  oneself. 

B 


( 

■    I 

I 


(6)  Ancient 
Ideal  pol- 
itical, 
modern  in- 
dividual- 
istic ;  the 
inadequacy 
of  each, 
and  their 
reconcili- 
ation in 
Personal- 
ity. 


^g  INTRODUCTION. 

6   A  second  characteristic  difference  between  the  stand- 
6.  A  secona  c  reflection  brings 

point  of  ^-^^^-\'^^^^^^^  of  such  a  personal  view 

out  still  more  clearly  the  ^ecess^y  J      ^^^  ^^^^  , 

political  or  ^0^^'^^^^^^  ,e  was  philosopher  or 

vidualistic.     io  tne  LTreeK,  w  ^ 

not  all  the  interests  of  life  were  summed  up   n  those 
^iship ;  he  had  no  sphere  of  "  private  mora^^      T, 
option  of  -  -te  — ^^^^^^^ 
to  the  Greek  mind,  that  it  seemea         i  g^^^^.e 

pretation  of  the  entire  f-^^f'^'^^^^^,  ^he  State 
I  its  adequacy  was  shaken  by  ^^^^^^J     ^^  ,,,  ,,,. 

^^-"'  -\  Xof  ;:^  ti  1  a^^^^^^^^^^^ '-  ^-- 

TetX  :» ti  n  of  G,:.  citizenship  was  abandoned,  as 
when  the  notion  u  ^^  citizenship  of 

a  commonplace  to  us,  Nve  ae  ^^^.^^  ^^ 

1     »„  ^f  tlip  moral  reflection  oi  tTreece, 

S         nd  IrM  tl     If  -o^^e-  ^1--^  ^'^'^  practice  are 
Plato  and  AristoLie.     x  ^,^p,^p       The  modern 

defective,  it  is  in   the  opposite  extreme  J 
ethical  standpoint  has  been  that .«  ^^^^^^^^  ^,  ,,, 
This  change  of  standpoint  ^  ^.^^^^^  ^^  ".tite  value 

acceptance  of  ^^^^^^^^'^^j:;'^::' ^.Z  we  might 
of  the  individual  as  a  moial  person   o  ^^ 

--^  ;.f  ^^^^72  nW  "dividual  has 


THE    ETHICAL   PROBLEM. 


19 


individualism  is  as  inadequate  as  the  principle  of  mere 
citizenship.     Hence  the  difficulty  of  reconciling  the  claims 
of  self  with  the  claims  of  society— a  difficulty  which  can 
hardly  be  said  to  have  existed  for  the  ancients,  who  had 
not  yet  separated  the  individual  from  his  society,  and  to 
whom,  accordingly,  the  two  interests  were  one  and  the 
same.     Hence,  too,  the  fantastic  and  impossible  concep- 
tion of  a  purely  selfish  life,  which  has  caused  modern 
moralists  such  trouble.     Hence  the  ignoring  of  the  im- 
portance of  ethical  institutions,  especially  that  of  the  State, 
resulting  in  the  view  of  the  State  as  having  a  merely 
negative  or  "  police  "  function,  and  the  Hobbes-Eousseau 
theory  of  society  itself  as  an  artificial  product,  the  result  of 
contract  between  individuals  who,  like  mutually  exclusive 
atoms,  are  naturally  antagonists. 

For,  in  reality,  these  two  spheres  of  life  are  inseparable. 
The  interests  and  claims  of  the  social  and  of  the  indi- 
vidual life  overlap,  and  are  reciprocally  inclusive.     These 
are  not  two  lives,  but  two  sides  or  aspects  of  one  undi- 
vided life.     You  cannot  isolate  the  moral  individual;  to 
do  so  would  be  to  de-moralise  him,  to  annihilate  his  moral 
nature.     His  very  life  as  a  moral  being  consists  in  a  net- 
work of  relations  which  link  his  individual  life  with  the 
wider  life  of  his  fellows.     It  is  literally  true  that  "no 
man  liveth   to   himself,"   there   is   no  retiring  into   the 
privacy  and  solitude  of  a  merely  individual  life.      Man 
is  a  social  or  political  being.     On  the  other  hand,  the 
individual  is  more  than  a  member  of  society ;  he  is  not 
the  mere  organ  of  the  body  poHtic.     He  too  is  an  organ- 
ism, and  has  a  life  and  ends  of  his  own.     The  Good  is,  for 
every  individual,  a  social  or  common  Good,  a  Good  in 


i 


20 


INTEODUCTION. 


21 


which  he  cannot  claim  such  private  property  as  to  ex- 
clude his  fellows ;  their  good  is  his,  and  his  theirs.  Yet 
the  Good— the  only  Good  we  know  as  absolute — is  always 
a  personal,  not  an  impersonal  good,  a  good  of  moral  per- 
sons. The  person,  not  society,  is  the  ultimate  ethical  unit 
and  reality. 

Resulting  7.  The  task  of  Ethics,  therefore,  is  the  discovery  of  the 
of  EthicTas  central  principle  of  moral  or  spiritual  life,  as  the  task  of 
ti'-ati'Jn  of  P^iology  is  the  discovery  of  the  central  principle  of  physical 
the  unify-    j^fg     ^he  undertakinsj  is  a  hard  and  difficult  one ;  and 

mg  pnn-  ^ 

it  is  possible  that  Life,  moral  as  well  as  physical,  may 
"elude  definition."  It  may  be  that  all  we  can  do,  in  the 
one  sphere  as  in  the  other,  is  to  describe  its  progressive 
outward  manifestations;  the  life-principle  itself  may  re- 
main a  secret.  In  that  case,  a  Science  of  Ethics,  as 
distinguished  from  a  Metaphysic  of  Ethics  or  a  Moral 
Philosophy,  would  alone  be  possible.  But  the  philosophic 
task  must  first  be  attempted,  and  not  given  up  at  the 
outset.  May  we  not  reasonably  hope,  with  Aristotle,  that 
the  ovaia  or  essential  nature  will  reveal  itself  in  the 
(f>v(Tt<^  or  TL  iarcp  of  actual  morality  ? 


ciple  of 
human  life. 


CHAPTER   II. 


THE   METHOD   OF   ETHICS. 


1.  Ethics    being    an    integral    part    of    Philosophy,   its  The  Meth 
method  must  be  the  method  of  Philosophy  rather  than  icsphiio- 
that  of  Science.     The  general  distinction  between  Philo-  rather  than 
sophy  and  Science  must  be  applied  here.     If  Ethics  is  to  '^^^^'°^^^^- 
provide  a  philosophy  of  life,  and  not  merely  a  science  of 
it,  its   method   cannot   be   the   merely  scientific   one   of 
observation  and  generalisation  of   the  "  phenomena "  of 
existing  or  past  conduct  and  character.     Such  a  scientific 
account  of  morality  is  no  doubt  legitimate,  and,  as  Aris- 
totle insisted  no  less  strenuously  than  recent  "  scientific  " 
moralists,  we  must  begin  wdth  "  the  facts."     But  philo- 
sophy must  attempt  here  as  elsewhere  to  travel  beyond 
the  scientific  explanation  to  one  that  is  deeper  and  ulti- 
mate.   Beyond  the  Science  of  Ethics,  whether  it  be  "  phys- 
ical Ethics,"  "  psychological  Ethics,"  or  "  historical  Ethics," 
is  the   "Metaphysic   of  Ethics"   or   ethical   Philosophy. 
The  modern  tendency,  the  tendency  especially   of   con- 
temporary thought,  is  to  "  naturalise  the  moral  man,"  to 
exhibit  the  evolution  of  human   conduct  and  character 


9  9 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE   METHOD   OF   ETHICS. 


23 


from  sub-human  forms,  to  substitute  physics  for  meta- 
physics, positivism  for  transcendentalism,  science  for 
philosophy.  But  we  must  not  prejudge  the  ethical 
question — the  question  whether  there  is  any  unique 
element  in  the  nature  and  life  of  man — by  adopting  the 
method  of  science  and  excluding  that  of  philosophy.  It 
is  perfectly  legitimate  to  attempt  the  resolution  of  man 
into  nature,  but  the  demonstration  of  such  an  identity 
would  be  itself  a  philosophical  achievement.  To  adopt  at 
the  outset  a  naturalistic  interpretation  of  morality,  or  to 
deny  the  possibility  of  an  ethical  philosophy,  would  be  to 
beg  the  question  of  Ethics. 

The  Phys-       2.  The  proposed  "  scientific  "  method  of  Ethics  assumes 
Bfoiogicai    various   forms   in   the   hands    of    contemporary   writers. 
Methods,     ^^^.^j^  Spencer,  for  example,  and  with  the  Evolutionary 
school  in  general,  it  is  sometimes  the  method  of  physics 
and  mechanics,  sometimes  the  method  of  biology.     Con- 
duct is  regarded  as  a  complex  of  movements,  a  series  of 
adjustments   of  the   human   being    to   his   environment. 
The  Science  of  Ethics,  accordingly,  is  the  result  of  the 
application  to  human  life  of  the  Darwinian  law  of  evolu- 
tion by  natural  selection ;  the  same  formula  of  adjustment 
of  the  being  to  its  environment  covers  the  process  of  the 
physical  and  of  the  ethical  life.     Whether  the  adjustment 
is  one  of  mechanical  movement,  of  life,  or  of  conscious 
purpose  is,  it  is  held,  a  matter  of  detail.      There  is  a 
difference    of    complexity,   but   the    process   is   one   and 
continuous  throughout.     Even  Professor  Alexander,  who, 
like  Mr  Leslie  Stephen,  emphasises  the  inner  significance 
of  conduct  as  the  expression  of  character,  would  make 


Ethics  the  verification  of  the  evolutionary  laws  of  "  struggle 
for  existence  "  and  "  survival  of  the  fittest."  ^  Now,  it  is 
obvious  that  conduct  is  a  series  of  outward  movements  or 
activities,  of  biological  and  mechanical  phenomena,  and 
that  it  may  be  interpreted  as  such.  But  the  ethical  inter- 
pretation of  it  must  be  based  on  another  view ;  in  the 
view  of  Ethics,  the  outward  movements  and  activities  are 
merely  the  index  and  expression  of  a  certain  type  of 
character.  To  apply  biological  and  mechanical  categories 
to  character  (or  to  conduct  as  conduct)  is  to  indulge  in 
unscientific,  metaphorical,  and  pictorial  thought. 

3.  Recognising  this  peculiarity  in  the  subject-matter  The  Psy- 
of  Ethics,  other  writers  would  have  us  adopt  the  psycho-  Method.^ 
logical  method.  The  facts,  it  is  acknowledged,  are  in  this 
case  facts  of  consciousness,  psychological  phenomena ;  but 
we  must  not  seek  to  travel  beyond  these  facts.  Let  us 
classify  the  motives  from  which  men  act ;  let  us  analyse, 
simplify,  and  unify  this  complex  mass  of  inner  activities. 
Let  us  trace  the  genesis  of  conscience,  and  show  how  the 
conception  of  an  Ought-to-be  has  slowly  emerged  from  the 
apprehension  of  the  Is  of  human  life.  This  psychological 
Ethics  is  no  new  thing :  Ethics  and  Psychology  have  been 
long  confused.  But  the  progress  of  Psychology  towards 
the  position  of  a  "  natural  science "  has  helped  us  to 
understand  the  distinction  between  its  province  and  that  of 
Ethics ;  here,  as  elsewhere,  scientific  progress  has  come 
with  self -limitation.  The  task  of  Psychology,  it  is  now 
generally  understood,  is  not  to  investigate  the  essential 
nature  of  mind,  but  only  to  give  a  methodical  account 

^  Cf .  Alexander's  '  Moral  Order  and  Progress,'  passim. 


24 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE   METHOD   OF    ETHICS. 


25 


The  His- 
torical 
Method. 


of  its  phases  or  elements.  It  deals  with  the  phenomenal 
manifestations  of  mind,  it  does  not  investigate  the  ulti- 
mate significance  of  these  manifestations  ~  the  place 
and  function  of  self -consciousness  in  the  economy  of 
the  universe.  The  latter  problem  is  that  of  Philo- 
sophy. If  we  apply  this  distinction  to  morality,  it 
will  mean  that  while  Psychology  is  perfectly  competent 
to  provide  a  "phenomenology"  of  the  moral  conscious- 
ness, it  remains  for  ethical  Philosophy  to  interpret  the 
meaning  of  these  phenomena.  In  particular,  Ethics 
must  investigate  the  objective  validity  of  the  grand 
moral  distinction  between  the  ideal  and  the  actual, 
the  Ought-to-be  and  the  Is,  a  distinction  which,  inas- 
much as  it  is  primarily  a  distinction  within  the  sphere 
of  consciousness,  is  for  Psychology  merely  phenomenal 
and  subjective.  Accepting  from  Psychology  the  scientific 
explanation  of  moral  phenomena,  on  their  inner  or  psy- 
chical side,  as  it  accepts  from  Physics  and  Biology  the 
scientific  explanation  of  the  same  phenomena  on  their 
outer  or  physical  side.  Ethics  reserves  to  itself  the  task  of 
accounting  for  the  entire  body  of  these  phenomena,  of 
(rivins  their  raiso7i  d'etre,  of  explaining  their  ''  morality." 

4.  The  demand  that  the  ethical  investigation  be  con- 
ducted according  to  scientific  method  takes  yet  another 
form,  closely  connected  with  the  preceding— viz.,  that 
the  true  method  of  Ethics  is  the  historical.  The  present 
popularity  of  this  method  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that 
it  is  the  method  of  evolution.  To  understand  any  pheno- 
menon, it  is  said,  is  to  know  its  genesis :  being  and  becoming 
are  one  and  the  same.    And  since  there  is  an  evolution  of 


morality,  as  of  all  else,  the  clue  to  its  explanation  will  be 
found  in  the  process  of  its  historical  development.  Ethics 
assumes,  therefore,  the  universal  form  of  current  science, 
and  becomes  a  "  study  of  origins."  "  Here,  then,  at  last," 
says  President  Schurman,  "we  have  an  answer  to  the 
question,  How  is  ethics  as  a  science  possible?  If  it  is 
ever  to  rise  above  the  analytical  procedure  of  logic,  it 
can  only  be  by  becoming  one  of  the  historical  sciences. 
Given  the  earliest  morality  of  which  we  have  any  written 
record,  to  trace  from  it  through  progressive  stages  the 
morality  of  to-dRy,—that  is  the  problem,  and  the  only 
problem,  which  can  fall  to  a  truly  scientific  ethics." '^  It 
is  to  the  "  history  of  moral  ideals  and  institutions,"  there- 
fore, that  this  writer,  with  many  other  ethical  thinkers, 
looks  for  "  the  solution  of  many  of  those  vexed  questions 
which  have  never  failed  to  stimulate,  and  have  always 
baffled,  the  ingenuity  of  all  the  schools  of  analytical  philo- 
sophers." "The  observation  and  classification  of  ethical 
facts,  whether  manifested  in  the  individual  or  in  the  race, 
constitute  the  business  of  the  science  of  ethics ;  all  else 
is  hypothesis,  speculation,  fancy.  .  .  .  Ethics,  if  it  is  to 
become  truly  a  science,  must  shun  the  path  of  specula- 
tion, and  follow  closely  the  historical  method."  ^ 

^  'Ethical  Import  of  Darwinism,'  31.  It  should  be  noted  that  Dr 
Schurman,  unlike  many  who  use  similar  language  about  the  method  of 
Ethics,  recognises  the  legitimacy  of  an  ethical  "philosophy"  based  upon 
the  historical  investigation  above  described. 

2  Cf.  Leslie  Stephen  {'  Science  of  Ethics,'  447,  448).  "  Ethical  investiga- 
tions,  like  others,  will  have  some  definite  results  when  we  turn  to  what 
are  called  historical  methods  of  inquiry.  .  .  .  The  tendency  of  modern 
speculation  to  take  that  form,  or  to  look  into  the  history  of  the  past  for 
an  answer  to  pi-oblems  which  were  once  attacked  by  looking  simply  into 
our  own  minds,  implies  a  recognition  of  this  principle." 


'"■i 


.f    ' 


26 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE    METHOD   OF   ETHICS. 


27 


But  to  make  Ethics  a  merely  historical  science  would 
be  to  give  up  all  that  is  historically  included  under  the 
term.     The  aim  of  Ethics  is  higher  than  the  mere  clas- 
sification   of    moral   "phenomena";    its    business    is    to 
investigate    their    essential    nature,    to    determine    their 
objective  meaning,  to  define  the  End  or  Ideal  of  which 
they   are   the    progressive    realisation.      It   is   doubtless 
ethically  instructive  to  study  the  history  of  morality,  but 
just  because  it  is  the  story  of  the  gradual  actualisation  of 
the  Moral  Ideal  in  character  and  conduct,  in  individual 
and  social  life.     The  study  of  the  history  is  an  invaluable 
aid  to  the  apprehension  of   the   Ideal  itself.     But   this 
ethical  interest  in   history  is  quite   different  from   the 
historical  interest.    Ethics  is  interested  in  historical  facts, 
not  as  facts,  but  as  containing  the  partial  revelation  of  an 
Ideal  without  which  the  history  itself  would  be  impossible. 
It  is  not  in  the  historical  facts  themselves,  but  in  their 
eternal  meaning  and  ultimate  explanation,  that  the  ethical 
interest  centres.     Ethics  is,  like  Logic  and  ^Esthetics,  a 
normative  or  ideal  science.     Its  business  is  the  discovery 
of  the  moral  Ideal  or  criterion,  and  the  appreciation  of 
actual  morality  in  terms  of  this  Ideal.     And  though  it  is 
true  that  it  is  only  by  the  study  of  its  actual  historical 
development  that  we  can  hope  to  discover  the  essential 
nature   of   the   moral   life,   yet   in   practice   it   will   too 
often  be  found  that  the  advocates  of  the  historical  method 
are  the  victims  of  the  fallacious  idea  that  the  earlier  and 
simpler  contains  the  explanation  of  the  later  and  more 
complex,   that   the   primitive    is    the   primary,   and   the 
simple   the   essential.      This    idea,    which    inspired    the 
Kousseau  Ethics  of  "  Nature,"  is  also  at  the  root  of  the 


prevalent  tendency  to  identify  Ethics  with  Anthropology, 
and  to  find  the  key  to  all  the  mystery  of  man's  nature 
in  the  crudities  of  infant  and  savage  life.  But  surely  the 
principle  of  Evolution,  truly  understood,  teaches  us  to 
recognise  the  meaning  of  the  lower  forms  in  the  higher, 
of  the  earlier  in  the  later,  rather  than  vice  versd.  The 
flower  and  fruit  do  not  betray  or  cancel  the  life  of  the 
seed ;  rather  the  one  is  the  revelation  of  the  other,  the 
explanation  of  its  real  nature.  If  we  are  to  be  faithful 
to  the  principle  of  Evolution,  we  must  recognise  an  identity 
and  continuity  in  the  changing  forms  of  moral  life.  But  if 
Evolution  means  progress,  then  it  is  in  the  later  rather  than 
in  the  earlier  forms  of  morality,  in  the  present  rather  than 
in  the  past,  whether  historic  or  prehistoric,  that  we  must 
seek  the  key  to  the  interpretation  of  the  ethical  process 
as  a  whole;  for  the  later  stages  are  more  adequate  ex- 
ponents of  its  meaning  than  the  earlier,  and  the  present 
than  the  past. 

5.  If  by  "  scientific  method "  it  is  simply  meant  that  Ethics  as 

3.11  ' '  IP 

Ethics  must  seek  to  be  methodical,  we  need  not  quarrel  exact' 
with  the  phrase.  But,  even  so,  we  must  guard  against 
misunderstanding.  While  the  ideal  of  Science  is  exact  or 
accurate  knowledge,  yet,  within  the  scientific  sphere  itself, 
there  is  a  distinction  between  the  "  exact  sciences "  and 
those  whose  procedure  and  results  cannot  be  so  character- 
ised. Mathematics  and,  to  a  large  extent,  physics  are 
exact  sciences;  biology,  in  its  various  subdivisions,  and 
still  more  obviously,  psychology,  are  not  exact.  Nor  is 
this  difference  in  scientific  method  due  to  the  difference 
in  the  progress  of  these  sciences ;  it  is  rather  the  result  of 


ail  "m- 
»» 

science. 


The  Meta- 
physical 
Method. 


28 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  difference  of  their  subject-matter.  Life  and  thought 
cannot  be  measured,  as  can  space  and  time,  matter  and 
motion.  If,  therefore,  Ethics  were  to  become  a  science  in 
the  stricter  sense  of  the  term,  it  is  among  the  inexact,  not 
among  the  exact  sciences,  that  we  should  expect  to  find  it. 
Mill  proposed  such  a  "  science  of  ethology,"  which,  taking 
human  character  as  its  subject-matter,  should  attempt  the 
reduction  of  moral  phenomena  to  a  uniformity  like  that 
to  which  the  physical  sciences  reduce  the  phenomena  of 
nature.  And  if  due  allowance  is  made  for  the  difference 
in  the  subject-matter,— the  same  kind  of  allowance  as  the 
biologist  makes  when  he  distinguishes  his  science  from 
that  of  physics,  or  the  psychologist  when  he  distinguishes 
his  from  that  of  physiology,— I  do  not  know  that  we  need 
dissent  from  such  a  definition  of  Ethics  as  a  science.^ 

6.  Only  I  would  claim  for  Ethics,  in  addition  to  the 
narrower  task  of  science,  even  so  conceived,  the  larger 
philosophic  task.  As  already  indicated,  the  science  of 
Ethics  must  have  for  its  complement  an  ethical  philosophy 
or  a  metaphysic  of  Ethics.  But  here  we  are  met  by  the 
agnostic  objection  to  all  metaphysics.  Mr  Leslie  Stephen, 
the  "  Apologist  "  of  Agnosticism,  tells  us,  in  his  '  Science 
of  Ethics,'  -  that,  in  his  opinion,  "  it  is  useless  to  look  for 
any  further  light  from  metaphysical  inquiries."  His 
demand  is  for  ethical  realism,  which  means  for  him  ethical 
empiricism,  positivism,  or  phenomenalism.  Let  us  keep 
to  the  moral  facts  or  phenomena,  to  "  moral  reality,"  and 

1  Cf.  Aristotle's  reiterated  insistence  that  we  must  not  demand  a 
greater  scientific  exactitude  than  the  nature  of  the  subject-matter  per- 
mits, and  that  the  subject-matter  of  Ethics  is  inexact.  ^  450. 


THE    METHOD    OF    ETHICS. 


29 


not  seek  to  penetrate  to  its  transcendental  background, 
or  think  to  find  the  sanctions  of  human  conduct  in  the 
divine  or  the  ideal.  If  we  understand  the  inter-relations 
of  the  facts  of  the  moral  life,  we  shall  sufficiently  under- 
stand their  moral  significance.  Let  us  ascertain  "  the 
meaning  to  be  attached  to  morality  so  long  as  we  remain 
in  the  world  of  experience ;  and  if,  in  the  transcendental 
world,  you  can  find  a  deeper  foundation  for  morality, 
that  does  not  concern  me.  I  am  content  to  build  upon 
the  solid  earth.  You  may,  if  you  please,  go  down  to  the 
elephant  or  the  tortoise."  ^  It  is  not  necessary  "  to  begin 
at  the  very  beginning,  and  to  solve  the  whole  problem  of 
the  universe  "  before  you  ''  get  down  to  morality."  "  My 
view,  therefore,  is  that  the  science  of  Ethics  deals  with 
realities;  that  metaphysical  speculation  does  not  help  us 
to  ascertain  the  relevant  facts.  .  .  .  This  is  virtually  to 
challenge  the  metaphysician  to  show  that  he  is  of  any 
use  in  the  matter."  ^ 

This  challenge  the  metaphysician  need  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  accepting,  and  his  answer  to  it  will  consist  in  a 
careful  definition  of  the  ethical  problem  and  of  the  possible 
solutions  of  it.  That  problem  is  not,  What  are  the  facts 
or  phenomena  of  morality  ?  but.  How  are  we  to  interpret 
the  facts  ?  What  is  their  ultimate  significance  ?  The 
former  question  will  no  doubt  help  us  to  answer  the 
latter ;  knowledge  of  the  (f)v<TL^,  or  actual  nature,  will  lead 
us  to  the  knowledge  of  the  ovaia,  or  essential  nature  and 
meaning,  of  moral  as  of  other  facts.  We  must  admit  that 
the  empirical  and  inductive  method  has  its  rights  in  the 
ethical  as  in  all  other  fields  of  inquiry,  and  that  the  "  high 

1  Op.  ciL,  446.  '  Ibid.,  450. 


I    f 


30 


INTRODUCTION. 


priori  road  "  is  a  road  that  leads  to  no  result  in  ethical 
any  more  than  in  natural  philosophy.     We  need  always 
the  instruction  of  experience,  knowledge  lies  for  us  in  an 
unprejudiced   study   of    the    facts.      But    the    Baconian 
method  of  pure  induction,  or  mere  observation,  will  not 
serve  us  any  better  than  the  method  of  pure  metaphysical 
deduction.     The  low  posteriori  road  also  will  bring  us  to 
no  goal  of  knowledge.    It  is  never  mere  facts  that  we  seek, 
it  is  always  the  meaning  of  the  facts ;  and  our  accumula- 
tion of  facts  is  never  more  than  a  means  towards   the 
attainment  of  that  insight  into  their  significance  which 
makes  the  facts  luminous.     Every  fact,  every  element  of 
reality,  carries  us  beyond  itself  for  its  explanation ;  if  we 
would  understand  it  we  must  relate  it  to  other  facts,  and 
these  to  others,  until,  to  understand  the  meanest,  slightest 
fact  or  element  of  reality,  we  find  that  we  should  have  to 
relate  it  to  all  the  other  facts  of  the  universe,  and  to  see  it 
as  an  element  of  universal  Eeality.     In  the  perfect  know- 
ledge of  the  "  little  flower,"  "  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and   man  is."      Even  so  the 
lowliest  flower  that  grows  on  the  soil  of  human  life  is 
rooted  in  the  deeper  soil  of  universal  Reality,  and  is  fed 
by  the  sap  of  the  cosmos  itself.     The  controversy  between 
agnosticism   and   metaphysics   is,   therefore,   not  a  con- 
troversy between  realism  and  idealism,  between  science 
and  unscientific  philosophy.     It  is  rather  a  controversy 
between  a  narrower  and  a  wider  view  of  Reality,  between 
a  more  superficial  and  a  more  profound  interpretation  of 
the  facts.     As  philosophy  ought  to  be  scientific,  so  must 
science  be  philosophic  or  metaphysical  in  its  method  and 
spirit.     If  the  over-hastiness  of  philosophical  speculation 


THE   METHOD    OF    ETHICS. 


31 


must  be  checked  by  the  caution  and  patience  of  scientific 
observation,  the  empirical  observation  of  science  must 
also  be  inspired  by  a  metaphysical  speculation  which  is 
always  in  advance  of  the  facts  observed.  The  distinction 
between  science  and  philosophy  is  not  a  distinction  of 
kind,  but  only  of  degree.  Science  abstracts  certain 
elements  of  reality  from  the  rest,  in  the  hope  of  mastering 
these  elements ;  but  always,  as  the  investigation  proceeds, 
it  is  found  that  the  mastery  of  the  elements  selected  for 
examination  implies  the  mastery  of  others,  and  the  mastery 
of  these  the  mastery  of  others,  until — even  from  the 
scientific  point  of  view — it  is  seen  that  a  perfect  mastery 
of  any  would  imply  the  perfect  mastery  of  all.  And  on 
our  journey  towards  this  "  master-light  of  all  our  seeing," 
it  is  hardly  possible  to  say  where  science  ends  and  philo- 
sophy begins.  In  the  case  now  in  question,  the  meta- 
physician only  seeks  to  attain  a  more  intimate  and  ex- 
haustive knowledge  of  moral  reality  than  the  scientific 
moralist,  to  penetrate  to  the  deeper  Reality  of  moral 
phenomena,  to  understand  what  it  is  that  thus  "  appears," 
to  grasp  the  Being  of  moral  Seeming.  The  scientific 
moralist  insists  on  taking  moral  facts  in  abstraction  from 
their  bearing  on  the  whole  theory  of  the  cosmos.  So 
taken,  they  assume  the  character  of  mere  facts,  they  lose 
their  ethical  meaning.  An  adequate  ethical  view  is  not 
reached,  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  morality  is  not 
attained,  so  long  as  we  separate  morality  either  from 
Nature  or  from  God.  Reality  is  one,  and  its  elements 
must  be  seen  in  their  mutual  relation  if  they  are  to  be 
understood  as  in  reality  they  are.  Ethics  is  therefore 
inseparable  from  metaphysics,  and  it  needs  no  "  ingenious 


\lr 


32 


INTRODUCTION. 


t  : 

V 

P    i 


IS     ! 


I» 


Relation  of 
Ethics  to 
Theology. 


sophistry  "  to  "  force  them  into  relation/'  If,  even  in  the 
strictly  inductive  stages  of  the  inquiry,  the  metaphysician 
mif^ht  well  claim  to  be  of  some  use ;  in  the  later 
stages  of  it,  at  which  we  have  now  arrived,  when  the 
"  facts  "  have  been  perhaps  sufficiently  accumulated,  he  is 
indispensable.  If  we  would  reach  an  adequate  interpreta- 
tion of  human  life,  we  must  place  man  in  his  true  human 
"  setting,"  we  must  discover  his  relation  to  the  world  and 
to  God.  The  meaning  of  human  life  is  part  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  universe  itself,  the  moral  order  is  part  of  the 
universal  order,  the  "ethical  process"  is  part  of  the 
"  cosmic  process." 

7.  It  is  customary  with  the  Evolutionary  moralists, 
even  with  those  who,  like  Mr  Stephen,  profess  agnos- 
ticism, to  correlate  man  with  Nature,  and  to  seek  to  de- 
monstrate the  unity  and  continuity  of  his  life  with  that  of 
the  physical  universe.  This  is,  of  course,  a  metaphysical 
endeavour,  and  if  its  legitimacy  is  not  open  to  question,  I 
do  not  see  why  the  effort  to  correlate  the  life  of  man  with 
that  of  God  should  be  pronounced  illegitimate.  If  mo- 
rality has  natural  "  sanctions,"  why  should  it  not  have 
divine  sanctions  ?  Metaphysics  is  essentially  and  inevi- 
tably theological ;  if  we  cannot  exclude  metaphysics,  we 
cannot  exclude  theology.  If  we  must  ask.  What  is  man's 
relation  to  Nature  ?  we  must  also  ask.  What  is  his  relation 
to  God  ?  It  is  probably  fear  of  theology,  rather  than  fear 
of  metaphysics,  that  inspires  the  agnostic  and  positive 
ethics.  Nor  is  the  fear  unreasonable,  considering  the  views 
of  morality  which  have  been  inculcated  in  the  name  of 
theology,  the  supernatural  machinery  that  has  been  called 


THE    METHOD    OF   ETHICS. 


33 


into  play  to  execute  the  "  sanctions  "  in  question,  and  the 
'*  terms  of  hell "  to  which  theologians  have  often  striven  to 
reduce  the  life  of  man.     Such  views  are  the  expression  of 
crude  thought  and  blind  dogmatism ;  they  are  not  entitled 
to  the  proud  name  which  Aristotle  claimed  for  his  "  first 
philosophy  "  or  metaphysics,  the  name  of  Theology.     No 
less  unworthy  is  it  to  employ  the  conception  of  God  as  a 
mere  "  asylum  ignoranti^e  ";  the  detcs  ex  machind  is  as  un- 
warrantable in  Ethics   as  in  the  Philosophy  of  Nature. 
The  "  Will  of  God  "  is  not  to  be  invoked  as  a  mere  exter- 
nal authority,  to  spare  us  the  trouble  of  discovering  the 
rationale  either  of  nature  or  of  morality.      God  must  be 
rather  the  goal  than  the  starting-point  of  our  philosophy. 
To  "  see  all  things  in  God "  would  be  to  understand  all 
things  perfectly ;  to  see  anything  in  that  Light  would  be 
to  see  all  things  as  they  truly  are.     Yet  we  cannot  rest 
content  in   any  lower  knowledge;  the   world   and   life 
remain  dark  to  us  until  they  receive  that  illumination. 
To  investigate  the  theological  sanctions  of  morality  is 
simply  to  go  from  the  outside  to  the  inside,  from  the  cir- 
cumference to  the  centre,  from  a  partial  to  a  complete 
view  of  the  ethical  problem.     If  all  questions  are,  in  the 
last  analysis  and  in  the  ultimate  issue,  theological  ques- 
tions, since  all  are  ultimately  questions  of  metaphysics, 
the   ethical  question  can   least  of   all   escape   this   fate. 
Ethics  is  not  mere  Anthropology.     To  interpret  the  life  of 
man  as  man,  we  must  interpret  human  nature,  and  its 
world  or  sphere ;  we  must  investigate  "  man's  place  in 
nature,"  his  relations  to  his  fellows,  and  his  relation  to 
that  life  of  God  which  in  some  sense  must  include  the  life 
of  nature  and  of  man.     Man,  with  his  moral  life,  is  part 

C 


A 


[li 


34 


INTRODUCTION. 


of  the  universe,  and  it  has  been  truly  said  that  it  is  really 
the  universe  that,  in  him,  is  interrogating  itself  as  to  the 
ultimate  meaning  of  moral  experience.  For,  in  the  moral 
world  no  less  than  in  the  intellectual,  experience  is  not  the 
last  word.  The  transcendental  or  "  metempirical "  ques- 
tion will  not  be  silenced :  What,  in  Nature,  Man  and  God, 
in  the  universal  Eeality,  is  the  basis,  presupposition,  or 
sanction  of  this  experience  ?  We  might  perhaps  distin- 
guish a  scientific  or  "  relative  "  Ethics  from  such  a  philo- 
sophic or  "  absolute  "  Ethics.  But  the  scientific  must  in 
the  end  fall  within  the  philosophic,  the  relative  within  the 
absolute ;  and,  short  of  a  "  metaphysic  of  ethics,"  there  is 
no  final  resting-place  for  the  human  mind.  That  meta- 
physic may  be  either  naturalistic  or  idealistic.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  law  of  human  life  may  be  reduced  to  terms 
of  natural  law,  the  moral  ideal  may  be  resolved  into  the 
reality  of  nature.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  ultimate 
measure  of  human  conduct  and  character  may  be  found  in 
a  spiritual  order  which  transcends  the  natural ;  the  moral 
ideal  may  be  found  to  express  a  divine  Eeality  to  which 
the  real  world  of  nature  would,  in  itself,  give  no  clue.  But, 
be  our  "  metaphysic  of  ethics  "  what  it  may,  metaphysics 
we  cannot  in  the  end  escape. 


35 


CHAPTEE     III. 


THE    PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


1.  Ethics,  as  the  philosophy  of  conduct  and  character, 
must  be  based  upon  Psychology,  or  the  science  of  the 
moral  life.  Inadequacies  in  ethical  theory  will  be  found 
to  be  largely  traceable  to  inadequacy  in  the  underlying 
Psychology.  Kant,  indeed,  seeks  to  separate  Ethics  from 
Psychology,  and  to  establish  it  as  a  metaphysic  of  the 
pure  reason.  But  even  Kant's  moral  philosophy  is  based 
upon  a  Psychology.  Abstracting  from  all  the  other 
elements  of  man's  nature,  Kant  conceives  him  as  a  purely 
rational  being,  a  Eeason  energising;  and  it  is  to  this 
abstractness  and  inadequacy  in  his  psychology  that  we 
must  trace  the  abstractness  and  inadequacy  of  Kant's 
ethical  theory.  So  impossible  is  it  for  Ethics  to  escape 
Psychology ;  so  necessary  for  philosophy  to  take  account, 
here  as  elsewhere,  of  scientific  results.  As  Aristotle 
maintained  in  ancient  times,  and  Butler  in  modern,  the 
question,  What  is  the  characteristic  excellence  or  proper 
life  of  man?  raises  the  previous  question,  What  is  the 
nature  and  constitution  of  man,  whose  characteristic  life 
and  excellence  we  seek  to  describe? 

Let   us  look  a  little  more  closely  at  the  connection 


Necessity 
of  psycho- 
logical 
basis  ;  in- 
adequate 
view  of 
human  life 
rests  upon 
inadequate 
view  of 
human 
nature. 


36 


INTRODUCTION. 


between  Ethics  and  Psychology,  as  we  can  trace  it  in  the 
history  of  ethical  thought.     In  both  ancient  and  modern 
philosophy,  we  find  two  main  types  of  ethical  theory,  which 
affiliate  themselves  to  two  main  psychological  doctrines. 
This  affihation  is  even  more  explicit  in  ancient  than  in 
modern  philosophy.     Plato  and  Aristotle   have   each   a 
double  representation  of  the  virtuous  life,  corresponding  to 
the  duahsm  which  they  discover  in  man's  nature-a  lower 
and  a  higher  life,  according  as  the  lower  or  the  higher 
nature  finds  play.     Man's  nature  consists,  they  hold,  of  a 
rational  and  an  irrational  or  sentient  part ;  and  while  the 
ordinary  he  of  virtue  is  represented  by  Plato  as  a  har- 
monious   ife  of  all  the  parts  in  obedience  to  reason-the 
city  of  Mansoul  being  like  a  well-ordered  State  in  which 
due  subordination   is   enforced,   and   by  Aristotle   as   a 
life  of  all  the  parts  (irrational  included)  in  accordance 
with  right  reason,-yet  both  conceive  his  highest  or  ideal 
ite  as  a  life  of  pure  reason,  or  intellectual  contempla- 
tion.    Thus  both  resolving  human  nature  into  a  rational 
and  an  irrational  element,  both  give  two  representations 
of  virtue  and  goodness.     The  life  may  be  good  in  form, 
but  bad  m  content-a  content  of  unreason  moulded  by 
reason ;  or  it  may  be  entirely  good-its  content  as  well  as 
Its  form  may  be  rational. 

This  psychological  and  ethical  dualism  is  further  em- 
phasised by  the  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  who  had  been  an- 
ticipated by  the  Cynics  and  by  the  Cyrenaics  respectively. 

or   n  ",        K  '  r'"°  ""°°  '''^''^''  -"-^  --demns 
or  entirely  subordinates  the  life  of  sensibility;  the  other 

making  sensibility  supreme,  either   excludes  or  ent  rely 

subordinates  the  life  of  reason.     The  same  two  types  may 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


37 


be  traced  in  modern  ethical  theory— the  Ethics  of  pure 
reason  in  Kant  and  the  Intuitionists,  the  Ethics  of  sensi- 
bility in  the  Utilitarian  and  Evolutionary  schools. 

The  "  abstractness  "  of  both  ethical  theories  is  traceable 
to  the  "  abstractness  "  of  the  underlying  psychology.  The 
half- view  of  human  life  rests  upon  a  half-view  of  human 
nature.  The  true  ethical  life  must  be  the  life  of  the 
whole  Man,  of  the  moral  Person.  Conduct  is  the  exponent 
of  character,  and  character  of  Personality.  If  we  would 
discover  the  life  of  man  in  its  unity  and  entirety,  we 
must  see  the  nature  of  man  in  its  unity  and  entirety.  We 
must  penetrate  beneath  the  dualism  of  reason  and  sensi- 
bility— of  reason  and  unreason— to  their  underlying  unity. 
The  ethical  point  of  view  must  be  neither  that  of  reason 
nor  of  sensibility,  but  of  Will,  as  the  unity  of  both,  as  the 
true  and  total  Self.  Plato  had  a  glimpse  of  this  unity 
when  he  spoke  of  Ovfjio^  as  carrying  out  the  behests  of 
reason  in  the  government  of  the  passions  and  appetites. 
Aristotle  spoke  more  explicitly  of  Will.  But  both,  like 
their  modern  successors,  insisted  on  construing  man's  life 
in  terms  either  of  reason  or  of  sensibility,  giving  us  an 
account  of  the  intellectual  or  of  the  emotional  life,  but  not 
of  the  moral  life— not  of  the  total  life  of  man  as  man.  In 
Will  we  find  the  sought-for  unity,  the  focal  point  of  all 
man's  complex  being,  the  characteristic  and  distinguishing 
feature  of  his  nature,  which  gives  us  the  clue  to  his  charac- 
teristic life.  Man  is  not  a  merely  sentient  being,  nor  is  he 
*•'  pure  reason  energising."  He  is  Will— and  his  life  is  that 
activity  of  will  in  which  both  reason  and  sensibility  are, 
as  elements,  contained,  and  by  whose  most  subtle  chemistry 
they  are  inextricably  interfused. 


38 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


39 


Voluntary 
activity 
presup- 
poses in- 
voluntary ; 
various 
forms  of 
the  latter. 


2.  The  moral  life  being  the  life  of  Will,  we  must  endea- 
vour to  reach  a  psychology  of  Will.  But  we  must  approach 
volition  gradually  and  from  the  outside.  Voluntary  pre- 
supposes involuntary  activity.  Volition  implies  a  concep- 
tion of  an  end,  purpose,  or  intention.  But  we  must  exe- 
cute movements  before  we  can  plan  or  intend  them.  The 
original  stock  of  movements  with  which  the  will  starts  on 
its  life  must  be  acquired  before  the  appearance  of  will  on 
the  stage  of  human  life.  "  The  involuntary  activity  forms 
the  basis  and  the  content  of  the  voluntary.  The  will  is  in 
no  way  creative,  but  only  modifying  and  selective."  ^ 

These  primary   and  involuntary   acts   are   of   various 
kinds;    some    are    the    results    of    the    constitution    of 
the  physical  organism,  others  imply  a   mental  reaction. 
The  most  important  are   the  following:   (1)  Keflex   and 
automatfc,  like  the  beating  of  the  heart  or  the  moving  of 
the   eyelids.     These   are    purely   physiological   and   un- 
conscious.    (2)  Spontaneous   or  random  movements,  the 
involuntary   and   partly   unconscious,    partly    conscious, 
discharge  of  animal  energy,  like  the  movements  of  the 
infant.     (3)  Sensori-motor,  the  conscious  but  non-volun- 
tary adaptation  to  environment — the  automatic  response 
to  external  stimuli,  due  to  the  irritability  of  the  nervous 
system.     (4)  Instinctive— not,  like  (3),  the  mere  momen- 
tary response  to  a  particular  stimulus,  but  complex,  hav- 
in<^  their  source  within,  in  the  motor  centres,  rather  than 
in  the  external  stimulus,— and  guided  by  reference  to  a 
"  silent "  or  unconscious  end. 

Now,  all  these  movements  are,  or  may  be,  accompanied 
by  sensations,  which  may  accordingly  be  called  "  motor- 

1  HofEding,  *  Psychologj^'  330  (Eng.  tr.) 


sensations."  Further,  of  these — the  psychical  correlates 
of  the  physical  movements,  their  "feels" — we  preserve 
a  memory-image,  which  has  been  called  a  "kimesthetic 
idea."  We  may,  therefore,  add  to  the  sensori-motor  (5) 
ideo-motor  activities,  which  embrace  the  great  mass  of 
the  higher  actions  of  our  life.  The  movement  here  ensues 
directly  upon  the  idea  or  representation  of  it,  or  rather 
of  the  sensation  attending  it,  as  in  the  former  case  it 
follows  from  the  sensation  itself.  There  is  still  no  volition. 
"We  are  aware  of  nothing  between  the  conception  and 
the  execution.  .  .  .  We  think  the  act,  and  it  is  done."  ^  An 
extreme  case  of  ideo-motor  action  is  found  in  the  hypnotic 
trance,  but  the  phenomenon  is  of  constant  occurrence  in 
ordinary  life.  To  remember  an  engagement  at  the  hour 
appointed  is,  in  general,  to  execute  it.  The  business  of 
life  could  never  go  on  if  we  deliberated  and  decided  about 
each  of  its  several  actions.  Instead  of  this,  we  surrender 
ourselves  to  the  train  of  ideas,  and  let  them  bear  us  on 
our  way..  For  ideas  are  essentially  impulsive — "idees- 
forces."  When  an  idea  fills  the  mind,  the  corresponding 
movement  follows  immediately.  Even  when  two  such 
ideas  occupy  the  mind,  when  we  are  attracted  in  two 
different  directions,  the  one  movement  may  be  inhibited 
through  the  idea  of  the  other.  There  may  be  a  "  block," 
and  a  clearance  of  the  way,  without  the  interference  of 
any  fiat  of  Will, — a  knot  which  unties  itself,  a  struggle  of 
ideas  in  which  the  strongest  survives,  and  results  in  its 
appropriate  movement. 


o.  All  this  provision  there  is  for  movement — partly  in  Voluntary 

activity, 
^  James,  '  Principles  of  Psychology,'  ii.  522.  how  dis- 


If 

It   ' 


u 


40 


INTRODUCTION. 


tinguished 
from  in- 
voluntary : 
volition  as 
control  of 
impulsive 
and  in- 
stinctive 
tendencies ; 
contrast  of 
animal  and 
human  life. 


the  nervous  system,  partly  in  the  mind  itself — without  any 
interposition  of  volition.  This  last  is  rather  of  the  nature 
of  inhibition  of  the  natural  tendency  to  movement — the 
regulation  and  organisation  of  movements — than  origina- 
tion. The  beginnings  are  given  by  nature.  But  these 
primary  movements  and  their  sensational  correlates  are 
vague  and  diffuse ;  they  constitute  a  "  motor-continuum," 
which  is  gradually  made  discrete  and  definite.^  This 
occurs  largely,  as  we  have  seen,  involuntarily.  A  move- 
ment is  determined  by  the  idea  of  the  movement,  that  is, 
by  the  anticipation  of  the  movement's  sensible  effects, 
without  the  explicit  intervention  of  Will.  Now  if  there 
be  such  a  thing  as  voluntary  activity,  its  source  must 
be  found  in  the  manipulation  of  the  ideas  of  move- 
ments already  made.  In  this  sense,  all  action  is  ideo- 
motor;  ks  source  is  in  an  idea  which  at  the  moment 
fills  the  consciousness.  The  question  of  the  nature 
of  volition,  therefore,  resolves  itself  into  this :  What  is 
the  mind's  power  over  its  ideas  ?  WTiat  is  the  genesis 
of  the  moving  idea  in  the  highest  and  most  complex 
activities  ? 

The  function  of  Will  obviously  is  the  regulation  and 
organisation  of  activity  through  the  regulation  and  organi- 
sation of  those  impulsive  tendencies  to  action  of  which 
man  is  naturally  the  subject.  We  shall  perhaps  obtain 
the  best  idea  of  what  the  life  of  mere  impulse  without 
volition  would  be  by  considering  the  case  of  a  volitional 
life  in  which  the  will  is  most  in  abeyance.  The  life  of 
the  habitual  drunkard,  for  example,  is  a  life  whose  notori- 
ous defect  is  the  absence  of  self-control ;  the  man  is  the 

1  Cf.  Ward,  art.  "Psychology"  in  'Encyclopaedia  Britannica,'  9th  ed. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


41 


k 


slave  of  the  idea  of  the  moment,  the  vivid  representation 
of  the  pleasures  of  gratified  appetite  or  of  social  excite- 
ment. This  idea  moves  him  to  act  in  the  line  of  its  guid- 
ance, and  its  continual  recurrence  carries  with  it,  as  its 
natural  and  immediate  consequence,  a  life  of  debauchery. 
Such  a  life  is  the  nearest  approach,  in  human  experience, 
to  that  of  the  animal;  such  a  man,  we  say,  "makes  a 
beast  of  himself."  The  tragedy  of  it  consists  in  the  fact 
of  the  abdication  of  the  will,  in  the  enslavement  by  im- 
pulse of  him  who  should  have  been  its  master.  The  case 
of  the  "  fixed  idea  "  in  insanity  or  in  hypnotism  would 
illustrate  even  better  a  life  of  impulse  without  will.  Here 
will  seems  to  be  simply  eliminated,  and  the  man  becomes 
the  prey  of  the  idea  of  the  moment  or  the  hour.  What- 
ever is  "  suggested "  in  the  line  of  the  dominant  idea,  he 
does  forthwith ;  his  life  is  a  series  of  simple  reactions  to 
such  ideational  stimulation. 

A  life  guided  by  Will,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  life  in 
which  each  impelling  idea,  as  it  presents  itself,  is  dealt 
with,  and  subdued  to  a  larger  ideal  or  conception  of  life's 
total  meaning  and  purpose ;  in  which  for  "  action  of  the 
reflex  type"  there  is  substituted  action  which  is  the 
result  of  deliberate  choice ;  in  which,  instead  of  the  coer- 
cive guidance  of  the  immediately  dominant  idea,  we  have 
the  guidance  that  comes  from  a  reflective  consideration 
of  the  relative  claims  of  the  several  ideas  which  now 
appear  on  the  field  of  consciousness  and  compete  for  the 
mastery.  Here  is  the  unique  and  characteristic  element 
of  human  activity,  in  virtue  of  which  we  attribute  Will 
to  man,  and  call  his  life  a  moral  life.  Even  voluntary 
activity,  in  the  last  analysis,  belongs  to  the  "  reflex  type," 


I"  ^ 


42 


INTRODUCTION. 


or  is  ideo-motor ;  but  such  is  the  new  complexity  of  the 
process  that  it  deserves  a  new  name.  A  man  does  not, 
or  at  any  rate  need  not,  "react,"  as  the  mere  animal 
reacts.  The  action  of  the  animal,  being  strictly  a  re- 
action, and  a  mere  immediate  reaction,  can  be  predicted, 
the  stimulus  being  given.  But  man  is  not,  like  the 
animal,  the  creature  of  impulse,  even  of  that  organised 
impulse  which  we  call  instinct.  He  is  an  animal,  a 
creature  of  impulse,  played  upon  by  the  varied  influ- 
ences of  his  environment.  But  he  is  also,  or  may  be, 
"the  master  of  impulse  as  the  rider  is  master  of  his 
horse";  his  life  may  be  the  product  of  a  single  cen- 
tral purpose  which  governs  its  every  act;  it  is  his  to 
live  not  in  the  immediate  present  or  in  the  immediate 
future,  but  to  "look  before  and  after,"  to  forecast  the 
remote  as  well  as  the  near  future,  and  to  act  in  the  light 
and  under  the  guidance  of  such  a  far-reaching  survey  of 

his  life. 

Volition,  then,  consists  in  the  direction  or  guidance  of 
given  impulsive  tendencies  or  propensities  to  act.  The 
function  of  will  is  not  to  create,  but  to  direct  and  control. 
The  impulsive  basis  of  volition,  like  the  sensational  basis 
of  knowledge,  is  given ;  the  former  is  the  datum  of  the 
moral  life,  as  the  latter  is  the  datum  of  the  intellectual 
life.  Man  is,  to  begin  with  and  always,  a  sentient  being, 
a  creature  of  animal  sensibility.  Such  sensibility  is  the 
"  matter  "  of  which  will  is  the  "  form,"  the  "  manifold  "  of 
which  will  is  the  "  unity."  That  organisation  of  impulse 
which  is  already  accomplished /or  the  animal  in  the  shape 
of  instinct,  has  to  be  accomplished  hj  man  himself.  The 
animal,  in  following  its  impulses,  fulfils  entirely  its  life's 


THE    PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


43 


purpose;  its  impulses  are  just  the  paths  that  bring  it 
securely  to  that  end.  We  do  not  criticise  its  life,  impul- 
sive though  it  is ;  it  is  as  perfect  and  true  to  its  intention 
as  the  growth  of  the  plant  or  the  revolutions  of  the 
spheres.  It  looks  not  before  or  after:  it  "does  not  ask 
to  see  the  distant  goal,"  the  "  whither  "  of  the  forces  that 
master  it — "  one  step  enough  "  for  it.  Its  life  is  blind,  or, 
at  any  rate,  sadly  near-sighted,  but  unerring.  Its  path  is 
narrow,  but  straight  to  the  goal.  But  to  man  is  given  an 
eye  to  see  his  life's  path  stretching  before  him  into  the 
far  spaces  of  the  future,  and  to  look  back  along  all  the  way 
he  has  come.  His  moral  life  is,  like  his  intellectual  life, 
self-conducted.  The  animal  is  born  into  the  world  fully 
equipped  for  its  life's  journey,  everything  arranged  for  it, 
each  step  of  the  path  marked  out.  Man  has  to  do  almost 
everything  for  himself — to  learn  the  intellectual  and  the 
moral  meaning  of  his  life,  to  put  himself  to  school,  above 
all,  and  from  the  beginning  even  to  the  end,  to  school  him- 
self. As  out  of  the  vague,  confused,  "presentation-con- 
tinuum" he  has  to  constitute,  by  his  own  intellectual 
activity,  a  world  of  objects,  so,  out  of  the  "motor-con- 
tinuum "  of  "  vague  desire "  he  has  to  constitute,  by  his 
own  moral  activity,  a  system  of  ends.  Each  sphere  is  a 
kind  of  chaos  until  he  reads  into  it,  or  recognises  in  it, 
the  cosmos  of  intelligence  and  of  will.  The  complete 
determination  and  definition  of  the  one  would  be  the 
Truth,  of  the  other  the  Good.  Where  the  animal  acts 
blindly  or  from  immediate  and  uncriticised  impulse,  man 
can  act  with  reflection  and  from  deliberate  choice.  Where 
the  animal's  life  is  the  outcome  of  forces  or  tendencies  of 
which  it  is  merely  "  aware,"  man  "  knows  "  or  discerns  the 


; 


If 


■i 


The  pro- 
cess of  vo- 
lition :  its 
various  ele- 
ments, (a) 
pause  ; 


44 


INTRODUCTION. 


(6)  deliber 
ation ; 


meaning  of  the  tendencies  he  experiences,  and  acts,  or 
may  act,  in  the  light  and  by  the  force  of  such  rational 
insight.  Where  the  cause  of  the  animal's  activity  is  to  be 
found  without  itself,  in  the  appeal  made  to  it  by  its  cir- 
cumstances or  environment,  in  the  "push  and  pull"  of 
impulsive  forces,  the  true  cause  of  human  activities  must 
be  sought  within  the  man  himself,  in  his  critical  con- 
sideration of  the  outward  appeal,  in  the  superior  strength 
of  his  rational  spirit. 

4.  But  we  must  note  more  closely  the  nature  of  the 
process  of  volition.      We  may  distinguish  three  stages. 
(a)  There  is  the  temporary  inhibition  of  all  the  impulsive 
tendencies,  the  pause  or  interval  during  which  the  alter- 
native activities  are  suspended.   We  can  hardly  exaggerate 
the  psychological  "  importance  of  the  interval."     It  is  this 
arrest  of  activity  that  breaks  the  immediacy  and  contin- 
uity of   the   merely  reflex   or  ideo-motor  life.      If   the 
drunkard  only  paused,  and  did  not  immediately  proceed 
to  realise  his  idea  of  gratification,  he  would  probably  not 
be  a  drunkard ;  but  he  rushes  to  his  fate.     He  who  hesi- 
tates, he  who  can  effect  the  pause,  in  such  a  case,  is  not 
lost,  but  almost  saved.i     The  first  step  towards  the  con- 
trol of  animal  impulse,  towards  the  subjection  of  a  master- 
idea,  is  to  postpone  its  realisation.     The  pause  does  not 
prejudge  the  question   of  our   ultimate  attitude  to   the 
impulse  in  question ;  all  that  it  implies  is  that  we  shall 
not  follow  the  impulse  in   the  meantime,  or   until  we 
have  considered  its  merits,  and  compared  them  with  those 
of  other  alternative  impulses,     {h)  There  is  deliberation, 

1  Cf.  James,  '  Principles  of  Psycholog}^'  ch.  26. 


-p' 


^*\ 


THE    PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


45 


reflection  upon  the  various  possible  courses  in  the  circum- 
stances, comparison  and  criticism  of  the  result  of  follow- 
ing each  competing  impulse,  a  study  of  the  entire  situation, 
a  "  self  -  recollection,"  a  "  gathering  oneself  together,"  a 
"  trying  of  our  ways,"  a  comparison  of  this  and  that  pos- 
sible future  with  our  present  and  our  past,  a  bringing 
the  course  proposed  to  the  touchstone  of  our  prevailing 
aspirations,  our  dominant  aims  in  life,  our  permanent 
and  deepest  as  well  as  our  fleeting,  momentary,  super- 
ficial, though  clamant,  self ;  a  swerving  from  one  side  to 
the  other,  a  weighing  of  impulse  in  the  scales  of  reflec- 
tion ;  and,  sooner  or  later,  (c)  a  decision  or  choice,  the  (c)  choice, 
acceptance  of  one  or  other  of  the  conflicting  ideal  futures, 
the  surrender  to  it  in  all  the  strength  of  its  now  increased 
impulsive  force,  the  identification  of  the  self  with  it,  and 
its  realisation.  The  ideal  future  thus  chosen  is  called  the 
end  or  motive  of  the  resulting  activity.  For,  once  grasped, 
it  becomes  the  constraining  stimulus  to  action,  the  idea 
which  moves  us.  In  it  is  now  focused  the  energy  of  the 
entire  man;  it  and  he  are,  in  a  real  sense,  one.  It  is* 
thus  that  ends  are  the  exponents  of  character,  that  life 
attains  to  unity  and  system :  it  is  thus  that  we  conceive 
of  the  perfect  life  as  one  guided  by  a  single  all-compre- 
hensive Purpose,  which  runs  through  its  entire  course, 
and,  gathering  up  within  itself  all  its  varied  activities, 
imparts  to  each  its  own  significance. 

The  entire  process  is  one  of  selective  attention.  In 
a  sense,  even  the  animal  selects;  only  certain  stimuli 
excite  it — those,  namely,  which  find  in  it  a  corresponding 
susceptibility.  And,  in  man's  case,  the  original  force  of 
the  momentarily  clamant  idea  is  a  result  of  what  may  be 


h  'i 


I 


46 


INTRODUCTION. 


called  "natural  selection."     It  is  because  he  is  the  man 
he  is,  that  this  particular  idea  has  for  him  such  impulsive 
force;   for  another  man,  the  same  idea  might  have  no 
impulsive  force  at  all.     This,  too,  is  a  case  of  attention, 
but  it  is  only  its  rudimentary  or  involuntary  form.     The 
animal,  or  the  man  who  does  not  pause  to  deliberate  and 
choose,  acts  from  a  kind  of  fascination  or  charm.      He 
has  no  eyes  to  see  other  paths,  no  ears  to  hear  other 
guides;  he  seems  to  himself  to  be  shut  up  to  this  one 
course.     But  there  is  another  kind  of  selection,  as  there 
is  another  kind  of  attention;   and  the  voluntary  is  dis- 
tinguished from  the  involuntary  by  the  element  of  de- 
liberation.    The  power  of  will  is  a  power  of  attention; 
the  distinction  between  involuntary  and  voluntary  atten- 
tion is  the  distinction  between  the  life  of  will  and  a  life 
without  will.     The  process  of  volition  is  the  process  of 
the  variation  and  oscillation  of  attention  from  one  aspect 
of  the  practical  situation  to  another.     It  is  thus  that,  as 
the  perspective  changes,  and  ideas  now  in  the  foreground 
•of  consciousness  retreat  into  the  background,  impulsive 
force  is  transferred  from  one  idea  to  another,  and  the 
resulting  activity  is  the  outcome  of  a  "  conjunct  view  of 
the  whole  case."     The  function  of  will,  therefore,  is,  by 
such  a  distribution  of  attention,  to  constitute  the  end  or 
motive  of  activity.     This  end  may  at  first  be  the  weakest 
idea  of  all,  the  least  fascinating,  the  one  which,  of  its  own 
original  resources,  would  be  least  likely  to  move  us ;  yet 
through  the  medium  of  deliberation,  through  the  strong 
intrinsic  appeal  it  makes  to  the  whole  self,  it  may  gather 
strength  while   the  others  as  gradually  and  surely  lose 
their  early  force,  until,  in  the  end  of  the  day,  in  the  final 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


47 


deliberate  choice,  we  find  that  the  last  is  first,  and  the 
first  last. 

And,  since  our  several  acts  of  choice  are  not  isolated 
but  organically  connected  with  one  another,  the  process 
may  be  described  finally  as  an  activity  of  moral  apper- 
ception or  integration.  The  activity  of  will  is  essentially 
an  adjustment  of  the  new  to  the  old,  and  of  the  old  to  the 
new.  Just  as,  in  the  case  of  any  real  addition  to  our  in- 
tellectual life,  the  process  is  not  one  of  mere  addition  of 
new  to  old  material,  but  rather  means  the  grafting  of  the 
new  upon  the  old  tree  of  knowledge,  in  such  wise  that 
the  old  is  itself  renewed  with  the  fresh  blood  of  the  new 
conception ;  so,  in  the  case  of  any  real  moral  advance,  any 
fresh  act  of  choice,  the  new  must  be  assimilated  to  the 
old,  and  the  old  to  the  new.  For  it  is  the  man — the  self — 
that  makes  the  choice,  and,  in  doing  so,  he  takes  up  a  new 
moral  attitude  ;  the  entire  moral  being  undergoes  a  subtle 
but  real  change.  The  house,  whether  of  our  intellectual 
or  of  our  moral  nature,  must  be  swept  and  garnished,  and 
made  ready  for  its  new  guest ;  and  if  that  guest  be  un- 
worthy, the  stain  of  his  presence  will  be  felt  throughout 
the  secret  chambers  of  the  soul.  Or,  to  drop  metaphor, 
and  to  state  the  matter  more  accurately,  we  must  apper- 
ceive  the  contemplated  act,  place  it  in  the  context  of  our 
life's  purposes,  and,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  more  or 
with  less  explicit  consciousness,  correlate  it  with  the 
master-purpose  of  our  lives.  It  is  thus  that  an  originally 
weak  impulse  may  be  strengthened  by  being  brought  into 
the  main-stream  of  our  life's  total  purpose.  A  choice 
is  therefore  an  organisation,  which  is  at  the  same  time 
an  integration  or  assimilation,  of  impulse. 


*  - 


48 


INTRODUCTION. 


Nature  and 
character. 


':  i 


5.  This  analysis  of  the  process  of  volition  prepares  us 
to  understand  the  distinction  between  nature,  disposi- 
tion, or  temperament,  on  the  one  hand,  and  character 
on  the  other.  The  former  is  our  original  endowment  or 
equipment,  the  given  raw  material  of  moral  life,  the 
natural,  undisciplined,  unformed,  unmoralised  man.  The 
latter  is  acquired,  the  fruit  of  effort  and  toil,  the  spiritual, 
disciplined,  formed,  moralised  man. 

From  the  first,  the  true  spring  of  activity  is  rather 
within  than  without,  in  the  unformed  self  of  the  man 
rather  than  in  his  external   circumstances  or  environ- 
ment.    It  is  because  the  man  is  what  he  is,  that  any 
particular   stimulus   is  a   stimulus   to  him.      The   "en- 
vironment"  is   his   environment;    to   another    it    would 
be    none..     Susceptibility    determines    and    constitutes 
environment,    rather    than    environment    susceptibility. 
Given  a  certain  type  of  susceptibility,  however,  a  great 
deal  depends  upon  the  presence  or  absence  of  the  corre- 
sponding  environment,  to  stimulate  that   susceptibility. 
In  the  case  of  a  merely  natural  or  animal  being— a  being 
without  a  character  or  the  possibility  of  its  formation— 
everything  depends  upon  the  presence  or  absence  of  such 
a  stimulating  environment ;  the  life  of  such  a  being  is  the 
product  of  this  action  and  reaction.     Man  himself  is,  at 
first,  such  a  merely  natural  being,  a  creature  of  impulse 
and  instinct,  an  animal  rather  than  a  man.    He,  too,  is 
nature's  "  offspring,"  a  veritable  "  part  of  nature,  which 
moves  in  him  and  sways  him  hither  and  thither";^  and 
were  there  not  in  him  a  higher  strength  than  nature's,  he 
would  remain  to  the  end  "  the  slave  of  nature."     Did  his 

^1  Prof.  Laurie,  'Ethica,'  22  (2d  ed.) 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


49 


nature  remain  as  it  originally  is,  his  would  be  a  merely 
natural  or  animal  life.     If  he  remained  in  this  "  state  of 
nature,"  his  life  would  either  have  no  unity  or  order  at  all, 
and  be  swayed  by  each  and  every  impulse  as  it  came; 
or  it  would  attain  merely  to  the  unity  of  the  animal  life, 
where  the  organisation  of  impulse  is  the  work  of  instinct. 
But  for  man  there  is  the  higher  possibility  of  attaining 
to  an  ethical  unity,  to  the  organisation  of  natural  impulse 
through  self-control.     The  unity  of  moral  self-hood  is  of  a 
different  order  from  the  natural  unity  of  force  or  instinct. 
As  Professor  Laurie  puts  it,  man,  as  a  Will  or  Self,  "  has 
to  do  for  his  own  organism  what  nature  through  neces- 
sary laws  does  for  all  else."     The  "  natural  man,"  as  such, 
the  animal  nature  in  man,  is  neither  good  nor  bad,  neither 
moral  nor  immoral,  but  simply  non-moral.     It  is  in  the 
possibility  of  transfiguring  this  natural  animal  life,  and 
making  it  the   instrument   and    expression   of   spiritual 
purpose,  that  morality  consists.     Morality  is  the  forma- 
tion, out  of  this  raw  material  of  nature,  of  a  character. 
The  seething  and  tumultuous  life  of  natural  tendency,  of 
appetite  and  passion,  affection  and  desire,  must  be  reduced 
to  some  common  human  measure.     Man  may  not  continue 
to  live  the  animal  life  of  unchecked  impulse,  borne  ever 
on  the  full  tide  of  natural  sensibility.     That  life  of  nature 
which   he   too   feels   surging  up  within  him,  has  to  be 
directed   and   controlled ;    it  must   be   subjected   to   the 
moulding  influence  of  reflective  purpose.     For  man  is  not, 
like  the  animal,  merely  "  aware  "  of  tendencies  that  swav 
him;  he  "knows"  them,  and  whither  they  lead.      His 
is  a  life  of  reflection  and  judgment,  as  well  as  of  imme- 
diate impulse ;  and  just  because  he  can  reflect  upon  and 


r  rl 


I 


m 


I 


50 


INTRODUCTION. 


judge  his  impulses,  he  can  regulate  and  master  them. 
Where  the  animal  is  guided  by  primary  feeling,  man 
is  guided  by  feeling  so  moralised  or  rationalised  that 
we  tall  it  "  sentiment "  or  "  moral  idea."  It  is  only  thus, 
by  taking  in  hand  his  original  nature  or  disposition, 
and  gathering  up  its  manifold  elements  into  the  unity 
of  a  consistent  character,  that  man  becomes  truly  man. 
He  must  thus  "come  to  himself,"  however  long  and 
laborious  be  the  way. 
Effort.  The  way  from  nature  to  character  is  laborious,  and  full 

of   effort.      "Before  virtue  the  gods  have  put  toil  and 
effort."    xaXeTra  t^  KoXd.     "  Strait  is  the  gate,  and  nar- 
row the  way,"  of  the  life  of  virtue.     For  the  voluntary  or 
moral  life  is,  in  its  essence,  we  have  seen,  the  inhibition  of 
natural  (impulsive  and  instinctive)  tendencies.     It  is  a 
turning  of  attention  in  another  than  its  natural  direction, 
an  effort,  by  distributing  over  a  wider  field  the  conscious- 
ness originally  focused  on  a  narrow  area,  to  change  its 
focus  from  one  restricted  area  to  another.    This  substitu- 
tion of  voluntary  for  involuntary  attention  is  difficult,  and 
most  difficult  at  first.     The  present  and  immediate,  the 
natural   or  "attuent,"i  nfe   is   engrossing,  clamant,  fas- 
cinating.    The  lines  of  impulse  and  instinct— the  lines  of 
nature— are  the  " lines  of  least  resistance";  thought  and 
"  cool "  self -recollection— the  lines  of  character  and  virtue 
—are  at  first  the  lines  of  greatest  resistance.     The  child 
has  to  be  helped  over  the  first  steps  of  its  moral  life,  just 
as  it  has  to  be  helped  to  walk  alone  both  physically  and 
intellectually;  its  weak  will,  so  soon  wearied  with  the 

1  We  owe  this  term  to  Professor  Laurie,  who  uses  it  throughout  his 
•  Metaphysica '  and  '  Ethica.' 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


51 


strange  effort,  has  to  be  propped  up  by  appeals  to  the 
well-rooted  instincts  of  its  childish  nature.  Long  after- 
wards, the  struggle  still  continues,  and  the  weariness 
returns,  and  still  often  "  old  Adam  is  too  strong  for  young 
Melanchthon,"  and  the  wretched  combatant  cries  out  for 
deliverance  from  the  body  of  this  death. 

But  gradually,  and  in  due  time,  the  deliverance  comes.  Second 
These  pains  and  agonies  are,  in  reality,  the  birth-pangs  of  ''^*'''^^' 
a  new  nature  in  the  man.     Gradually  he  experiences  "  the 
expulsive  power  of  new  affections."     Character  is  itself  a 
habit  of  will,  and  habit  is  always  easy.     Virtue  is  not 
virtue  until  it  has  become  pleasant.^    Character  does  not 
consist  in  single  choices,  made  with  difficulty,  and  after 
much  deliberation  and  weighing  of  the  pros  and  cons.     It 
consists   in  the   formation   of  grooves  along  which   the 
activity  naturally  and  habitually  runs.     He  is  not,  in  the 
highest  sense,  an  honest  man  who  does  an  honest  act  with 
difficulty,  and  who  would  rather  act  dishonestly.      The 
honest  man  is  the  man  to  whom  it  would  be  difficult  and 
unnatural  to  act  dishonestly,  the  man  in  whom  honesty  is 
a  "  second  nature."     Thus  we  see  how,  since  character  is 
itself  a  habit — a  new  and  acquired  habit  which  has  sup- 
planted the  primary  habits  of  the  mere  animal  nature — the 
difference  between  "nature"  and  "character"  must  be  a 
fleeting  one.     What  was  at  first,  and  perhaps  for  long,  the 
hard-won  fruit  of  moral  effort,  becomes  later  the  sponta- 
neous work  of  the  new  "nature"  which  has  thus  been 
born  within  us.   Effort  becomes  less  and  less  characteristic 
of  the  life  of  virtue ;  self-control  becomes  less  difficult,  as 
virtue  becomes  a  "  second  nature."     The  storm  and  stress 

1  Aristotle,  Nic.  Eth.,  bk.  ii.  ch.  3. 


i 


I   I 


f  { 


i 


It  * 


Limit- 
ations of 
volition  : 
(a)  Econ- 
omy. 


52 


INTRODUCTION. 


of  its  earlier  struggles  is  followed  by  the  great  calm  of 
settled  and  established  virtue.    The  *'  great  currents  of  our 
lives,  the  habitual  lines  of  activity,  opinion,  and  interest," 
carry  us  with  them.     There  is  no  longer  the  inhibition, 
the  painful   suspense   of   deliberation,   and   the   anxious 
choice,  but  the  even  flow  of  the  great  main-stream.     The 
energies  of  the  will,  which  were  formerly  so  dissipated,  are 
now  found  in  splendid  integration,  and  the  whole  man 
seems  to  live  in  each  individual  act.     If  it  were  not  that 
the  way  of  virtue  is  long,  as  well  as  difficult,  we  should  be 
apt  to  say  that  the  element  of  effort  which  characterises 
its  beginning  is  destined  in  the  end  to  disappear;  if  it 
were  not  that  there  were  always  new  virtues  for  even  the 
most  virtuous  to  acquire,  we  should  be  inclined  to  say  that 
the  path  of^virtue  is  steep  and  difficult  only  "at  the  first." 
But  the  ascent  reveals  ever  new  heights  of  virtue  yet  un- 
attained;  and  the  effort   of   virtue   is  measured  by  the 
heights  of  the  moral  ideal  as  well  as  by  the  heights  of 
moral   attainment.      Thus,  what   at   a   lower  level   was 
"  character  "  becomes,  at  the  higher,  again  mere  "  nature," 
to  be  in  turn  transcended  and  overcome.     "  We  rise  on 
stepping-stones  of  our  dead  selves  to  higher  things."   There 
is  no  resting  in  the  life  of  virtue,  it  is  a  constant  growth ; 
to  stereotype  it,  or  to  arrest  it  at  any  stage,  however  ad- 
vanced, would  be  to  kill  it.     There  is  always  an   "old 
man  "  and  a  "  new  " :  the  very  new  becomes  old,  and  has  to 
die,  and  be  surmounted. 


6.  Certain  limitations  of  the  volitional  life  are  suggested 
by  what  has  already  been  said. 

{a)  The  principle  of  economy  of  will-power  implies  the 


i  ■? 


THE    PSYCHOLOGICAL    BASIS. 


53 


surrender  of  large  tracts  of  our  life  to  mechanism.     Such 
a  surrender   is   made   in   the   case   not   only   of  purely 
physical  activities,  but  also  generally  in  the  case  of  the 
routine  of  daily  life.     To  deliberate  and  choose  about  such 
things  as  which  boot  we  shall  put  on  first,  or  which  side 
of  the  garden-walk  we  shall  take,  is  an  entirely  gratuitous 
assertion  of  our  power  of  volition;   it  is  the  mark  of  a 
weak  or  diseased,  rather  than  of  a  strong  and  healthy  will. 
Decision  and  strength  of  character  are  shown  in  the  choice 
of  certain  fixed  lines  of  conduct  in  such  particulars,  and 
in  the  abiding  by  the  choice  once  made.     Farther,  a  great 
economy  of  effort  is  secured  by  the  choice  of  ends  rather 
than  of  means.     The  means  may  require  deliberation  and 
choice,  but,  to  a  very  large  extent,  they  are  already  chosen 
in  the  end.    And  in  general  we  may  say  that  the  details  of 
an  act  which,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  strictly  voluntary,  may 
be  cases  of  merely  ideo-motor  activity ;  the  operation  may 
proceed  with  perfect  smoothness,  each  step  of  it  suggesting 
the  next  in  turn,  without  any  intervention  of  will. 

{h)  The  continuity  of  our  moral  life  also  implies  a(6)Contin. 
large  surrender  of  its  several  acts  to  mechanism  or  habit.  ^^^^* 
The  moral  life  is  not  a  series  of  isolated  choices ;  it  is  a 
continuous  and  growing  whole.  As  it  proceeds,  the  sur- 
vey becomes  more  and  more  extended;  to  use  a  con- 
venient technical  term,  the  individual  act  is  more  and 
more  completely  "  apperceived."  The  mature  moral  man 
does  not  fight  his  battles  always  over  again ;  he  brings 
the  individual  act  under  a  conception.  His  life,  instead 
of  being  a  constant  succession  of  fresh  choices,  becomes  a 
more  or  less  complete  system  of  ends,  centring,  implicitly 
or  explicitly,  in  one  supreme.     The  deliberation  is  chiefly 


m 


Hi 


V  - 


If  - 


!i 


(c)  Fixity 
of  char- 
acter. 


54 


INTRODUCTION. 


about  the  placing  of  the  individual  action  in  its  true 
relations  to  the  context  of  this  system,  about  the  inter- 
pretation of  it  as  a  part  of  this  whole.  In  general,  we 
choose  "  sections  "  of  life,  rather  than  the  individual  details 
which  fill  those  sections.  In  other  words,  all  men,  even 
those  whom  we  call  "  unprincipled,"  have  certain  prin- 
ciples, of  which  their  life  is  the  expression. 

Choices  are  not,  I  have  said,  independent ;  they  inevi- 
tably "  crystallise,"  or  rather,  they  are  seeds  which  develop 
and  bear  fruit  in  the  days  and  years  that  follow.  The 
moments  of  our  life  have  not  all  an  equal  moral  signifi- 
cance. Kather  the  significance  of  our  lives,  for  good  or 
evil,  seems  to  be  determined  by  moments  of  choice  in  days 
and  years  of  even  tenor.  There  are  great  moments  when 
both  good  and  evil  are  set  before  us,  and  we  consciously 
and  deliberately  embrace  a  great  end,  or,  with  no  less 
deliberate  consciousness,  reject  it  for  a  lower  and  less 
worthy.  Every  act  is  implicitly  a  case  of  such  moral 
faithfulness  or  unfaithfulness.  But,  in  such  moments  as 
those  of  which  I  now  speak,  the  will  gives  large  com- 
missions to  habit,  and  leaves  to  it  their  execution.  The 
commission  is  quickly  given,  its  execution  takes  long. 
The  moral  crises  of  our  lives  are  few,  and  soon  over ; 
but  it  seems  as  if  all  the  strength  of  our  spirit  gathered 
itself  up  for  such  supreme  efforts,  and  as  if  what  follows 
in  the  long-drawn  years  were  but  their  consequence. 

(c)  "What  is  generally  called  "  fixity  of  character  "  sug- 
gests a  third  important  limitation  of  the  will's  activity. 
The  course  of  moral  life,  as  it  proceeds,  seems  to  result  in 
the  establishment  of  certain  fixed  lines  of  conduct  and 
character,  whether  good  or  evil.     Its  course  becomes  more 


5Wi 


\ 


THE    PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


55 


and  more  settled ;  law  and  system,  of  one  kind  or  another, 
are  more  and  more  visible  in  it.  The  formation  of  char- 
acter means,  as  we  have  seen,  the  constant  handing  over 
to  habit  of  actions  which  were  at  first  done  with  delibera- 
tion and  effort.  "  Association  takes  over  the  work  of  in- 
telligence " ;  "  we  fall  back  under  the  lead  of  impulse  " ; 
character  becomes  "  second  nature."  We  are  always  forg- 
ing, by  our  acts  of  deliberate  choice,  the  iron  chains  of 
habit.  Otherwise,  there  would  be  no  ground  gained,  no 
fruit  harvested  from  daily  toil  of  will,  no  store  of  moral 
acquisition  laid  up  for  future  years.  Our  life  would  be  a 
Sisyphus'  task,  never  any  nearer  its  execution.  But,  as 
we  roll  it  up,  the  stone  does  remain,  nay,  tends  still  up- 
wards. Of  this  gradual  and  almost  imperceptible  fixation 
in  evil  ways,  the  characters  of  Tito  in  George  Eliot's 
*  Eomola,'  and  of  Markheim  in  Mr  E.  L.  Stevenson's  little 
story  of  that  name,  are  impressive  instances.  What  is 
exemplified  in  such  cases  is  not,  I  think,  loss  of  will-power 
so  much  as  "  fixity  "  of  character — itself  the  creation  of 
will — degradation  of  the  will,  a  choice,  apparently  final 
and  irrevocable,  of  the  lower  and  the  evil.  This  is  the 
tragedy  of  the  story  in  either  case.  Is  not  this,  again,  the 
meanino-  of  the  weird  Faust  lecjend  which  has  so  im- 
pressed  the  imagination  of  Europe  ?  Faust's  "  selling  his 
soul "  to  Mephistopheles,  and  signing  the  contract  with 
his  life's  blood,  is  no  single  transaction,  done  deliberately, 
on  one  occasion ;  rather  that  is  the  lurid  meaning  of  a  life 
which  consists  of  innumerable  individual  acts, — the  life  of 
evil  means  that.  And,  at  the  other  extreme  of  the  moral 
scale,  does  not  "  holiness  "  mean  a  great  and  final  exalta- 
tion of  will,  its  perfect  and  established  union  with  the 


hi 


I  i 


i(  I 


56 


INTRODUCTION. 


higher  and  the  good,  "  fixity  of  character  "  once  more  ? 
These  infinite  possibilities  of  evil  and  of  goodness  seem  to 
be  the  implicate  of  an  infinite  moral  ideal ;  they  are  the 
moral  equivalents  of  the  heaven  and  hell  of  the  religious 
imagination.  What  is  Will  itself  but  just  this  power  or 
possibility,  infinite  as  our  nature,  for  each  of  us  in  the 
direction  either  of  goodness  or  of  evil?  Between  these 
extremes  moves  the  ordinary  average  life  of  the  comfort- 
able citizen.  The  strongest  and  deepest  natures  are  the 
saints  and  the  sinners ;  the  weaker  and  more  superficial 
fluctuate  irresolute  between  the  poles  of  moral  life. 

On  the  side  of  goodness,  at  any  rate,  we  readily  admit 
the  reality  of  that  moral  experience  of  which  "  fixity  of 
character"  is  the  natural  interpretation.      We  have  no 
interest  in  proving  that  the  saint  is  potentially  a  sinner. 
The  condition  and  attribute  of  the  highest  life,  we  readily 
admit,  is  not  to  hold  oneself  aloof  from  good  and  evil,  and 
"  free  "  to  choose  between  them.     Far  rather  it  is  found  in 
the  "single  mind,"  in  the  resolute  identification  of  the 
whole  man  or  self  with  the  good,  in  the  will  of  the  higher 
self  to  live.      For,  as  Aristotle  truly  said,  virtue  is  not 
virtue,  until  it  has  become  a  habit  of  the  soul,  and  easy 
and  spontaneous  as  a  habit.     Moral  progress  is  a  progress 
from  nature  and  its  bondage,  through  freedom  and  duty, 
to  that  love  or  "  second  nature  "  which  alone  is  the  "  ful- 
filling of  the  law."     So  that,  "  after  all,  free-will  is  not  the 
highest   freedom."      Free-will    implies    antagonism   and 
resistance.    "  But  the  action  of  the  perfect,  so  far  as  they 
are   perfect,  is   natural.   .   .   .    Only  it  proceeds  from  a 
higher  Tiature,  in  which  experience  has  passed  through 
reason  into  insight,  in  which  impulse  and  desire  have 


i 


THE    PSYCHOLOGICAL    BASIS. 


57 


passed  through  free-will  into  love."  ^  This  is  freedom 
made  perfect,  the  liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 

Whether  the  identification  of  the  will  with  evil  can 
ever  become,  in  the  strict  sense,  fixed,  is  a  hard  and 
perhaps  unanswerable  question.  The  Faust  legend  seems 
to  express  such  a  belief,  and  for  Tito,  as  for  Esau,  there  is 
"  no  place  left  for  repentance."  In  the  impressive  little 
story  of  '  Markheim/  I  think  I  see  a  gleam  of  hope,  a 
suggestion  and  no  more,  of  the  final  possibility,  even 
for  the  most  debased,  of  moral  recovery.  That  last  act 
of  deliberate  self-surrender  seems  like  the  first  step  away 
from  the  evil  past  towards  a  better  future.  It  was  the 
last  possibility  of  good  for  the  man ;  but  even  for  him  it 
was  a  possibility  still.  And  does  it  not  seem  as  if  an  evil 
character,  however  evil,  being  the  formation  of  Will, 
might  be  uniormed  and  reformed  by  the  same  power? 
Is  not  character,  after  all,  but  a  garment  in  which  the 
spirit  clothes  itself— a  garment  which  clings  tightly  to 
it,  but  which  it  need  not  w^ear  eternally  ? 

The  tendency  is  towards  such  settlement  or  gradual 
fixation,  whether  in  goodness  or  in  evil.  But  absolute 
"fixity  of  character"  is  disproved  by  that  indubitable 
fact  of  moral  experience  which  Plato,  equally  with  the 
Christian  theologian,  calls  "  conversion  " — such  a  complete 
change  of  bent  as  amounts  not  merely  to  a  reformation  but 
to  a  revolution  of  character — "  the  turning  round  of  the 
eye  of  the  soul  and  with  it  the  whole  soul,  from  darkness 
to  light,  from  the  perishing  to  the  eternal."  It  seems 
as  if  the  past  and  the  present  life  were  never  an  ex- 
haustive expression  of  the  possibilities  of  will.     The  man 

^  G.  A.  Simcox,  in  'Mind,'  iv.  481. 


58 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL    BASIS. 


59 


is   always  more  than  the  sum  of  his  past  and  present 

experience,  and  often  he  surprises  us  by  creating  a  future 

which,  while  it  stands  in  relation  to  the  past,  yet  does  so 

only  or  chiefly  by  antithesis.     It  is  as  if  the  catastrophe 

which  comes  with  the  culmination  of  his  evil  career,  by  its 

revelation   of  the  full  meaning  of  the  life  he  has  been 

livins:,  shocked  him  into  the  resolve  to  live  a  different  and 

a  better  life.     It  is  as  if  Markheim  said  to  himself,  after 

the  tragedy  of  that  fateful  day,  when  he  had  connected  it 

with  himself,  and  confessed  that  the  seeds  of  even  that 

evil  were  thickly  sown  in  the  soil  of  his  evil  past :  "  That 

is  not  the  man  I  choose  to  be  " ;  and  as  if,  in  the  strength  of 

that  decision,  accepting  the  full  consequences  of  his  deed, 

and  surrendering  himself  deliberately  to  its  retribution, 
ft 

he  forthwith  took  the  first  step  away  from  his  past  self 
and  towards  a  future  self  entirely  different.  Might  not 
even  Tito,  even  Faust,  even  Esau,  so  choose  at  last  the 
better  part  ?  Christianity  calls  it  a  "  new  birth,"  so 
different  is  the  new  man  from  the  old.  Yet,  however 
different,  it  is  the  same  man  through  the  two  lives ;  the 
same  will,  only  it  has  changed  its  course  ;  the  same  player, 
but  in  a  new  role. 

We  must  recognise,  therefore,  a  very  considerable  range 
of  variation  in  the  adequacy  of  activity  as  the  exponent 
of  character.  In  some  actions  we  see  the  stirring  of  the 
deeps  of  personality,  the  revelation  of  the  very  self;  in 
others  only  the  waves  on  the  surface  of  the  moral  life. 
There  is  a  great  difference  in  this  respect  even  between 
individuals.  Some  men  are  reserved,  and  their  character 
is  a  closed  book  to  their  fellows.  Others  are  open,  and 
readily  reveal  their  inner  being.     In  some  there  is  less 


depth  of  soil  than  in  others, — superficial  natures,  who  have 
not  much  either  to  reveal  or  to  conceal,  the  volume  of 
whose  character  is  quickly  read  and  mastered  by  their 
fellows.     In  some,  perhaps  in  all,  there  is  a  double  life,  an 
outer  and  an  inner,  never  quite  harmonised,  and  often 
directly  opposed.    This  *'  double-faced  unity  "  in  the  moral 
world,  this  co-existence  and  antagonism  of  "  two  men  "  in 
one,  of  Dr  Jekyll  and  Mr  Hyde,  is  not  necessarily  duplicity 
or  hypocrisy.     Eather  it  seems  to  mean  that  there  is  al- 
ways a  residuum  of  moral  possibility,  whatever  the  actual 
character  may  have  become ;  the  man  never  is  either  Dr 
Jekyll  or  Mr  Hyde,  the  saint  or  the  sinner,  but  he  is 
potentially  either,  though   actually  partly  the   one  and 
partly  the  other,  more  the  one  and  less  the  other.     And 
out  of  the  deepest   retreats  of  the  unconscious  or  sub- 
conscious sphere  there  may  emerge  any  day  the  buried, 
forgotten,  yet  truest  and  most  real  self.      The  man  may 
have  wandered  into  the  far  country,  and  may  even  seem 
to  have  lost  all  trace  of  goodness,  and  yet  he  may  in  the 
end  "  come  to  himself,"  and  may  recover  those  possibilities 
which  had  till  then  seemed  possibilities  no  longer.     "  So 
long  as  there  is  life  there  is  hope."     Character  may  seem 
to  have  quite  lost  its  plasticity,  and  to  have  become  en- 
tirely fixed  and  rigid.     But  it  is  not  so.     Character  is  a 
living  thing,  and  life  is  never  fixed  or  rigid.     After  all, 
the  ordinary  average  character  is  more  apt  to  suggest  the 
true  state  of  the  case  than  either  of  the  extremes.     These 
extremes  are  instability  or  absence  of  character  on  the  one 
hand,  and  what  we  have  called  fixity  or  finality  of  char- 
acter on  the  other.     The  latter  would  be  "  fossilisation," 
or  the  cessation  of  growth,  which  is  death.     Character  is 


60 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


61 


Intellec- 
tual ele- 
ments in 


volition  : 

(a)C 

tion. 


essentially,  from  first  to  last,  plastic.  It  implies  "  open- 
mindedness,"  freshness  or  ingenuousness,  receptiveness  for 
the  new.  The  change  is  not,  indeed,  capricious  or  at 
random;  the  new  must  be  linked  to  the  old;  the  old 
must  itself  be  renewed,  recreated  in  every  part.  Yet  the 
relation  of  the  new  to  the  old  may  be  that  of  antithesis 
and  revolt,  as  well  as  of  synthesis  and  continuity.  The 
development  of  character  is  not  always  in  a  straight  line : 
it  is  ever  returning  upon  and  reconstituting  itself. 

7.  It  is  necessary,  before  leaving  the  psychology  of  the 

moral  life,  to  consider  the  relation  of  intellect  and  feeling 

rJ'^'^''  •     to  Will     We  find  several  intellectual  elements  in  volition : 

(a)  Concep-  ^^  '  *  ^^**  i  •    i  • 

(a)  Conception.     The  natural  or  animal  life  is  unthinkmg ; 
the  voluntary  or  moral  life  is  a   thoughtful  life.     The 
Greeks  understood  this  well ;  we  find  Socrates,  Plato,  and 
Aristotle  all  alike  identifying  virtue  with  knowledge  or 
rational  insight.     It  is  not,  however,  true  that  the  moral 
and  the  intellectual  life  are  one,  or  that  virtue  is  know- 
ledge.    It  is  the  volition  behind  the  intellection  that  is 
the   essential   element.      We   might   say   that   virtue   is 
attention,  or  the  steady  entertainment  of  a  certain  concep- 
tion of  life  or  of  its  several  activities.     This  is  what  dis- 
tinguishes the  voluntary  form  of  activity  from  both  the 
instinctive  and  the  impulsive  forms.    Instinct  executes  cer- 
tain ends  unconsciously ;  it  is  the  unconscious  organisa- 
tion of  impulse,  nature's  own  control  of  natural  tendency. 
Mere  impulse,  on  the  other  hand,  is  momentary,  and  takes 
in  but  a  single  object ;  the  creature  of  impulse  is  touched 
at  only  one  point  of  his  nature,  and  follows  the  tendency  of 
the  moment.     Since,  therefore,  man  has  the  organisation  of 


his  impulsive  tendencies  in  his  own  hands,  his  first  and 
essential  act  must  be  one  of  thought  or  conception.  To 
think  or  conceive  the  proposed  action  aright,  is  the  condition 
of  right  action ;  and  it  is  because  the  vicious  man  thinks 
or  conceives  his  action  wrongly,  and  under  false  colours,  that 
he  does  it.  "  To  sustain  a  representation,  to  think,"  says 
Professor  James,  "  is,  in  short,  the  only  moral  act."  It  is 
because  the  drunkard  "  lets  himself  go,"  and  will  not  con- 
ceive or  name  his  act  aright,  because  he  will  not  acknow- 
ledge to  himself  that  "  this  is  being  a  drunkard,"  that  he 
is  a  drunkard.  So  soon  as  he  brings  himself  to  this,  he 
is  on  the  way  to  being  saved ;  if  he  keeps  his  mind  on 
that  idea,  it  will  gradually  be  strengthened,  until  it  is 
predominant,  and  issues  in  the  inhibition  of  the  tendency 
to  drink.  For  thus  to  conceive  an  act  is  to  apperceive 
it,  to  see  it  in  all  its  relations  to  his  total  self ;  and  then 
how  differently  it  looks,  how  its  fascination  pales  in  that 
larger  light.  The  true  centre  of  influence  has  now  been 
found,  in  the  deeper  rational  Self  which  assimilates  and 
rejects  according  to  its  discrimination. 

Undue  reflectiveness  means,  of  course,  weakness  of  will 
or  indecision  of  character;  it  is  fatal  to  that  prompti- 
tude which  is  essential  to  effective  activity.  Plato  has 
drawn  a  delightful  picture  of  the  dire  practical  effects 
of  undue  deliberation,  in  his  contrast  of  the  awkward, 
ineffective  philosopher  and  the  shrewd,  quick,  business- 
like little  lawyer-soul.i  in  his  parable  of  the  Cave,  also, 
he  has  given  expression  to  the  popular  idea  of  the  man  of 
thought  as  little  fitted  to  be,  at  the  same  time,  a  man  of 
action ;  he  represents  the  philosopher  or  true  thinker  as 

1  '  The^tetus,'  172-176. 


62 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


63 


withdrawn  from  human  affairs,  and,  by  his  want  of  in- 
terest in  the  concerns  of  ordinary  life,  in  a  sense  unfitted 
for  the  conduct  of  life's  business.     Shakespeare,  too,  has 
created  for  us  a  Hamlet,  a  thinker  but  a  dreamer,  disabled 
by  undue  reflection  for  the  part  he  is  called  to  play  on 
this  world's  stage,  his  will  so  embarrassed  by  the  pros  and 
cons  of  a  restless  intellect  that  it  can  accomplish  nothing, 
a  man  in  whom  "  the  native  hue  of  resolution  is  sicklied 
o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought."     And  our  own  century 
has  furnished  a  sad  living  commentary  on  the  familiar 
text.     Amiel's  '  Journal '  is  the  record  of  how  the  springs  of 
all  practical  energy  were  sapped  by  a  continual,  brooding, 
Hamlet-like  reflection  which  never  found  vent  in  action : 
it  is  one  long  bitter  plaint  of  a  soul  praying  for  deliver- 
ance from  the  body  of  such  a  living  death,  the  story  of  a 
life  endowed  with  such  clearness  of  intellectual  vision, 
united  to  such  sad  impotence  of  will,  that  it  could  trace 
its  own  failure  to  this  single  source.     So  true  is  it  that  we 
all  have  "  the  defects  of  our  qualities,"  and  that  these 
defects  must  be  our  ruin  if  we  guard  not  against  them. 
Yet  life  is  not  all  tragedy  ;  and  such  dire  consequences  are 
not  inevitable,  or  even  normal.     Even  in  these  cases,  it  is 
not  that  the  man  thinks  too  much,  but  that  his  activity  is 
not  up  to  the  measure  of  his  thought ;  unless  thought  finds 
its  constant  and  adequate  expression  in  action,  it  weakens 
where  it  ought  to  strengthen  the  power  to  act.     The  re- 
sult is  what  Professor  James  calls  "  the  obstructed  will," 
the  will  hindered  by  thought,  which  is  just  at  the  oppo- 
site extreme  from  the  "  explosive  "  or  impulsive  will,  the 
will  that  does  not  think,  but  reacts  with  "hair-trigger" 
rapidity  and  certainty.     The  true  function  of  thought  is 


to  mediate  between  these  extremes  of  character,  not  to  sap 
the  force  of  impulse,  but  to  guide  that  force  to  more 
effective  issues.  The  grey  light  of  reason  need  not  quench 
all  the  bright  sunshine  of  enthusiasm ;  the  ruddy  life  of 
natural  impulse  need  not  be  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale 
cast  of  thought.  Eather  it  is  the  function  of  reason  to 
convert  unthinking  impulses  into  great  enthusiasms,  to 
inform  the  practical  energies  with  far-reaching  purposes, 
and  thus  to  be  the  will's  best  helpmate  in  its  proper  task. 
The  most  effective  man  is  he  who,  knowing  best  and 
thinking  most  profoundly  about  life's  meaning,  feels  also 
most  intensely,  and  acts  most  promptly  and  consistently 
in  the  common  sphere  of  thought  and  feeling. 

ih)  It  is  obvious  that  memory-images  are  necessary  for  {h)  Mem- 

ory. 

the  representation  of  future  possibilities.  We  can  con- 
ceive the  future  only  in  terms  of  the  past :  experience  is 
our  sole  instructor  in  the  conduct  of  life.  And  only  a 
vivid  and  accurate  memory  of  the  past,  the  power  to 
reproduce  it  as  it  was,  can  deliver  us  from  the  bondage  of 
the  engrossing  present.  The  ability  to  look  forward  is 
largely  an  ability  to  look  backward.  Experience  is  our 
common  instructor  here,  but  we  are  not  all  apt  pupils. 
Some  gain  from  experience  far  more  than  others,  in  re- 
tentive memory  they  garner  its  golden  grain,  and  draw 
from  it  in  all  the  exigencies  of  the  present;  the  years 
bring  to  them  their  own  peculiar  gift — the  "wisdom  of 
life."  To  others  the  years  do  not  bring  the  philosophic 
mind ;  they  seem  to  pass  through  the  same  experience 
untouched  by  its  lessons.  Their  life  is  in  the  fleeting 
present.  They  are  like  children  who  amuse  themselves 
with  life's  changing  show.     They  are  the  creatures  of 


(c)  Imagin- 
ation. 


64 


INTRODUCTION. 


present  impulse,  passive  and  receptive,  taking  no  thought 
for  the  morrow,  because  they  take  no  heed  of  yesterday ; 
for  "  purpose  is  but  the  slave  to  memory."  ^  Such  lives  are 
without  perspective,  without  appreciation  of  the  far  and 
near;  they  have  no  future,  because  they  have  no  past. 
The  wise  man's  life  is  richly  "  fringed  "  on  either  side, 
and  the  fringe  of  the  future  is  of  the  same  pattern  as 
that  of  the  past.  Memory  is  the  true  "measuring  art." 
A  truthful  representation  of  the  future  depends  upon  a 
truthful  representation  of  the  past,  and  will  go  far  to 
determine  the  present. 

(c)  The  power  to  look  vividly  forward  is  no  less  necessary 
than  the  power  to  look  vividly  backward.  It  is  a  defect 
of  imaginaticfn  that  is  largely  to  blame  for  the  unworthy 
and  sensual  lives  we  see.  It  is  because  the  horizon  is 
bounded  by  the  day's  needs  and  the  day's  capacities  of 
enjoyment,  that  the  life  is  so  narrow  and  so  mean.  Could 
but  the  horizon  lift,  could  but  the  man  look  into  the  far- 
distant  future,  and  discern  there  all  the  consequences  of 
the  act  he  is  about  to  do,  could  he  but  see  its  waves 
breaking  on  those  distant  shores  against  which  some  day 
they  mitst  break,  how  different  his  life  would  be !  And 
if  we  would  lift  the  horizon  of  time  itself,  and  see  our 
life  in  time  sub  qiutdam  specie  ceternitatis,  we  must  stretch 
our  imagination  to  the  utmost.  Seen  in  that  light,  in  the 
light  of  "  the  immensities  and  eternities,"  nothing  is  com- 
mon or  unclean,  nothing  is  trivial  or  commonplace ;  the 
simplest  and  meanest  acts  become  transfigured  with  a 
strange  dignity  and  significance.     Surely,  then,  the  moral 

^  Hamlet,  Act  iii.  sc.  2,  quoted  by  Hoflfding,  327.     Cf.  his  account  of 
this  entire  subject. 


I 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


65 


imagination  which  discovers  to  us  the  true  perspective  of 
life,  is  no  less  important  for  practice  than  is  the  scientific 
imagination  for  theory. 

8.  Two  opposed  views  have  long  been  canvassed,  and  Wiiiand 
the  controversy  still  rages,  as  to  the  place  of  feeling  in  is  pleasure 
the  moral  life.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  maintained  that  of  choice? 
pleasure  is  the  constant  and  exclusive  object  of  desire ; 
on  the  other  hand,  that  pleasure  is  never  the  object  of 
desire.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  said  that  our  life  is  one 
continuous  pursuit  of  pleasure ;  on  the  other  hand,  that 
the  pursuit  of  pleasure  is  impossible  and  suicidal.  The 
one  view  sees  in  pleasure  the  sole  actual  end  of  life ; 
the  other  sees  in  it  the  concomitant  and  result,  but  not 
the  end  or  object  of  pursuit.  The  former  view  was  held 
in  ancient  philosophy  by  the  Cyrenaics,  and  in  modern, 
among  others,  by  Hume  and  J.  S.  Mill.  The  latter  is  the 
view  of  Aristotle  among  the  ancients,  of  Butler,  Sidgwick, 
and  Green  among  modern  moralists,  and  of  James,  Bald- 
win, and  Hoffding  among  contemporary  psychologists. 
Both  theories  admit  that  feeling  is  an  element  in  human 
life;  the  problem  is  to  determine  its  psychological  place 
and  function. 

A  glance  at  the  role  of  feeling  in  the  lower  and  non- 
voluntary activities  of  instinct  and  impulse  may  help  us 
to  understand  the  part  it  plays  in  the  higher  life  of  Will. 
We  have  seen  that  neither  in  the  case  of  impulse,  nor  in 
that  of  instinct,  is  there  consciousness  of  an  end.  Both 
are  blind,  unenlightened  tendencies  to  act  in  a  certain 
way.  In  impulsive  activities  there  is  no  operation  of  an 
end  at  all ;  in  those  which  we  call  instinctive  its  operation 

E 


66 


INTRODUCTION. 


is  unconscious.  But  both  these  types  of  activity  are  ac- 
companied by  feeling.  There  is  not  merely  the  tendency 
to  act;  the  consciousness  has  a  passive  as  well  as  an 
active  side,  a  certain  "tone" — it  is  pleasant  or  painful. 
J^or  is  this  primarily  passive  side  merely  passive,  merely 
concomitant ;  it  is  also  influential  in  determining  the 
activity  of  the  sentient  being.  It  is  the  single  ray  of 
light  let  into  the  darkness  of  the  animal  life  of  instinct 
and  impulse.  There  is  no  further  vision  of  the  Whither ; 
there  is  no  consciousness  of  purpose,  no  choice  of  ends. 
But  there  is  a  feeling  for  pleasure  and  pain,  of  want  and 
the  satisfaction  of  it;  and  this  feeling  guides  the  being 
towards  the  objects  that  will  satisfy  it,  that  will  quench 
its  pain  and' yield  it  pleasure.  This  feeling  for  pleasure 
and  pain  has  helped  materially  to  guide  the  evolution  of 
animal  life.  Pleasure-giving  and  life-preserving  activities 
are,  in  the  main,  identical;  and  the  importance  of  the 
addition  of  the  conscious  pressure  of  feeling  to  the  un- 
conscious pressure  of  environment  and  circumstances  can 
hardly  be  overestimated. 

That  which  distinguishes  voluntary  from  involuntary 
activity  is,  we  have  seen,  the  conscious  operation  of  ends 
as  motives  of  choice.  The  guidance  has  now  passed  into 
the  hands  of  intellect;  we  act  in  the  light  of  rational 
insight  into  the  issues  of  our  activity.  To  the  lower 
guidance  of  immediate  near-sighted  feeling  there  is  now 
added  the  higher  and  farther-seeing  guidance  of  ideas. 
But,  even  here,  the  guidance  has  not  entirely  passed 
from  the  hands  of  feeling.  For,  not  only  are  there,  in- 
terfused with  ends,  what  Professor  Baldwin  calls  "  affects," 
or  activities  immediately  determined  by  feeling ;  but  ends 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


67 


themselves  have  an  "affective"  side,  or  contain  an  ele- 
ment of  feeling  without  which  they  would  possess  no 
motive-force.  "  The  simple  presence  of  an  idea  in  con- 
sciousness is  itself  a  feeling,  and  only  in  as  far  as  it 
affects  us  does  it  move  us."  ^  Feeling  thus  mediates 
between  intellect  and  will,  converting  the  cold  intel- 
lectual conception  into  a  motive  of  activity.  In  ends, 
then,  there  is  always  an  element  of  feeling  as  well  as  of 
thought;  it  is  the  fusion  of  these  two  that  constitutes 
the  "  interests  "  of  the  voluntary  life.  We  are  now  de- 
livered from  the  immediate  dominion  of  feeling;  we  see 
or  foresee  what  course  will  yield  us  pleasure,  and  we  act 
under  the  guidance  of  this  intellectual  sight  or  foresight. 
But  are  we  not  still,  indirectly  if  not  directly,  controlled 
by  feeling  ?  The  hedonist  answers  in  the  affirmative ;  he 
insists  that  the  ultimate  factor  in  the  determination  of 
our  choice  is  feeling  rather  than  thought,  that  thought  is 
after  all  the  minister  of  feeling,  informing  it  how  a  de- 
sirable state  of  feeling  may  be  attained  and  an  undesirable 
state  of  feeling  escaped.  The  dominion  of  feeling  still 
persists,  only  it  is  an  indirect  dominion ;  feeling  has  not 
abdicated,  it  has  only  delegated  its  authority  to  intellect, 
and  become  a  constitutional  sovereign.  The  anti-hedonistic 
answer  is  that  pleasure,  or  an  agreeable  state  of  feeling,  is 
never  the  end  or  object  of  desire  and  choice ;  that  while 
pleasure  accompanies  both  the  pursuit  and  the  attainment 
of  our  ends,  it  never  constitutes  these  ends.  We  never 
act,  it  is  contended,  for  the  sake  of  pleasure,  but  for  the 
sake  of  objects,  or  interests,  in  which  we  "  rest,"  and  from 
which  we  do  not  return  to  a  consideration  of  our  own  sub- 

1  Baldwin,  'Psychology,'  313,  314. 


68 


INTRODUCTION. 


jective  feeling  of  pleasure,  either  in  their  pursuit  or  in  their 
attainment.  Let  us  follow  the  argument  on  both  sides,  if 
we  can,  to  the  end. 

The  primary  direction  of  thought,  the  anti-hedonist 
maintains,  is  towards  the  object,  not  towards  the  pleasure 
which  it  is  expected  to  yield.  We  do  not,  it  is  argued, 
look  so  far  ahead  as  the  pleasure ;  that  is  not  what  moves 
us.  To  say  that  the  anticipated  pleasure  is  the  motive  of 
activity  is  to  commit  the  psychologist's  fallacy ;  to  read 
your  own  introspective  and  analytic  consciousness  of  the 
conditions  of  consciousness  into  that  original  and  natural 
consciousness  which  is  the  object  of  your  introspective  in- 
vestigation, but  is  not  itself  troubled  with  introspection  or 
analysis.  Even  the  voluntary  life  is,  to  this  extent,  blind  ; 
even  it  is  not  endowed  with  the  minute  vision  of  the  psy- 
chologist, still  less  with  the  microscopic  eye  of  the  logi- 
cian. The  question  is :  What  do  we  desire  ?  not  What 
are  the  conditions  of  desire  ?  or  Why  do  we  desire  what  we 
desire  ?  It  is  a  question  of  fact,  not  of  the  conditions  or 
the  rationale  of  the  fact.  Now,  "  a  pleasant  act,  and  an 
act  pursuing  pleasure,  are,  in  themselves,  two  perfectly 
distinct  conceptions.  ...  It  is  the  confusion  of  pursued 
pleasure  with  mere  pleasure  of  achievement,  which  makes 
the  pleasure-theory  so  plausible  to  the  ordinary  mind."  ^ 
In  short,  the  "  pleasure  of  pursuit "  is  psychologically 
different  from  the  "  pursuit  of  pleasure." 

Even  the  hedonists  themselves  seem  to  yield  this  point, 
and  to  admit  the  "  paradox  of  hedonism  " — viz.,  that  "  to 
get  pleasure  you  must  forget  it."  Mill  makes  this  confes- 
sion, both  in  his  '  Utilitarianism '  and  in  his  '  Autobio- 

^  James,  '  Principles  of  Psychology,*  556,  557. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


69 


graphy.'  He  admits  that  the  direct  pursuit  of  pleasure  is 
suicidal,  that  we  must  lose  sight  of  the  end  in  the  means, 
and,  adopting  a  kind  of  "  miser's  consciousness,"  affect  a 
disinterested  or  objective  interest,  forget  ourselves,  and 
pursue  objects  as  if  for  their  own  sake,  and  not  for  the 
sake  of  the  pleasure  which  we  expect  them  to  yield. 
"  Something  accomplished,  something  done,"  yields  pleas- 
ure ;  but  if  it  is  to  yield  the  pleasure,  at  least  the  maxi- 
mum of  pleasure,  we  must  not  do  it  for  the  sake  of  the 
pleasure.  The  life  of  pleasure-seeking  is,  in  other  words, 
by  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  a  life  of  illusion  and 
make-believe. 

But,  replies  the  anti-hedonist,  such  an  interpretation  of 
human  life  is  in  the  highest  degree  artificial  and  un-psy- 
chological.  "  The  real  order  of  things  is  just  the  reverse 
of  the  hedonistic  interpretation  of  it.  Instead  of  begin- 
ning with  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  and  ending  by  pursuing 
what  was  earlier  the  means  to  pleasure,  we  begin  by  pur- 
suing an  object,  and  end  by  degrading  this  primary  object 
to  an  artificial  means  to  pleasure,  or  as  a  competitor  with 
pleasure  for  the  dignity  of  being  pursued."^  The  passage 
is  "from  simple  desire  for  an  object  which  satisfies  to 
desire  for  the  satisfaction  itself."  Here,  once  more, 
the  hedonist  seems  forced  to  concede  the  point  to  his 
antagonist.  Even  such  an  arch-hedonist  as  Hume  admits 
that  "  it  has  been  proved  beyond  all  controversy  that  even 
the  passions  commonly  esteemed  selfish  may  carry  the 
mind  beyond  self  directly  to  the  object ;  that  though  the 
satisfaction  gives  us  enjoyment,  yet  the  prospect  of  this 
enjoyment  is  not  the  cause  of  the  passion,  but,  on  the  con- 

1  Baldwin,  '  Psychology,'  327. 


70 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   BASIS. 


71 


trary,  the  passion  is  antecedent  to  the  enjoyment,  and 
without  the  former  the  latter  could  never  possibly  exist."  ^ 
The  case  now  seems  to  be  decided  against  the  hedonist. 
The  latter's  interpretation   of   life   seems  to  have  been 
proved  unnatural  and  forced.     The  Epicurean  may,  on 
reflection,  adopt  his  scheme  of  life  as  the  only  logically 
defensible  scheme ;  but  his  practice  will  always  contradict 
the  logic  of  his  scheme.     The  "  hedonistic  calculus  "  must 
be  abandoned,  and  another  measure  found  for  practical 
use.     But  the  hedonist  is  not  yet  silenced.     There  is  a 
"  previous  question,"  he  still  insists,  which  his  opponent 
has  not  answered— viz..  What  is  the  "  object "  of  desire,  if 
it  is  not  pleasure  ?     Are  we  not  brought  back  to  hedonism 
whenever  we  investigate  the  constitution  of  the  object  ? 
Does  not  that  pleasure,  which  we  had  just  put  out  at  the 
door,  come  back  through  the  window  ?     For  what  is  the 
object  ax)art  from  yoic  ?    It  exists  through  its  relation  to 
you— nay,  it  is  yourself.    What  you  desire  is  not  a  mere 
object,  but  an  object  as  satisfying  yourself,  and  what  moves 
you  to  act  is  the  idea  of  yourself  as  satisfied  in  the  attain- 
ment of  the  object.     Not  the  object,  but  the  attainment  of 
the  object  by  you— or,  more  strictly  still,  your  self-satis- 
faction in  its  attainment— is  the  end  that  moves  you  to 
strive  after  it.     And  in  what  can  the  satisfaction  of  the 
self  consist  but  in  a  feeling  of  pleasure  ? 

Moreover,  the  "  paradox  of  hedonism "  turns  out  to  be 
more  seeming  than  real?  The  distinction  between  the 
end  and  the  means  towards  its  attainment  is  not  a  real 
but  an  artificial  distinction.  The  end  and  the  means  are 
really  the  same,  you  can  analyse  the  one  into  the  other ; 

1  '  Essay  on  Different  Species  of  Philosophy,'  §  1,  note. 


the  end  is  the  whole,  of  which  the  means  are  the  parts  or 
elements,  and  you  can  no  more  lose  the  end  in  the  means 
than  the  whole  in  the  parts.  The  means  to  pleasure  are 
just  the  details  of  the  pleasant  life,  and  in  pursuing  them 
you  are  in  truth  pursuing,  in  the  only  rational  manner, 
step  by  step,  or  bit  by  bit,  that  totality  of  satisfaction 
which  can  be  constituted  in  no  other  way.  The  life  of 
pleasure  is  not  an  abstract  universal ;  it  is  a  concrete 
whole,  and  consists  of  real  particulars.  Pleasure,  further, 
is  derived  from  pleasant  things ;  to  divorce  it  from  these 
is  to  destroy  it.  But  such  a  divorce  is  entirely  gratuitous ; 
no  matter  how  it  is  reached,  the  pleasure  itself  is  our  real 
end.  We  have  not  '•'  forgotten  "  the  pleasure  after  all.  In 
the  words  of  J.  S.  Mill :  "  In  these  cases  the  means  have 
become  a  part  of  the  end,  and  a  more  important  part  of  it 
than  any  of  the  things  which  they  are  means  to.  What 
was  once  desired  as  an  instrument  for  the  attainment  of 
happiness,  has  come  to  be  desired  for  its  own  sake.  In 
being  desired  for  its  own  sake  it  is,  however,  desired  as 
jpart  of  happiness.  The  person  is  made,  or  thinks  he 
would  be  made,  happy  by  its  mere  possession;  and  is 
made  unhappy  by  failure  to  obtain  it.  The  desire  of  it  is 
not  a  different  thing  from  the  desire  of  happiness,  any 
more  than  the  love  of  music,  or  the  desire  of  health. 
They  are  included  in  happiness;  they  are  some  of  the 
elements  of  which  the  desire  of  happiness  is  made  up. 
Happiness  is  not  an  abstract  idea,  but  a  concrete  whole ; 
and  these  are  some  of  its  parts.  .  .  .  Life  would  be 
a  poor  thing,  very  ill  provided  with  sources  of  happiness, 
if  there  were  not  this  provision  of  nature,  by  which  things 
originally  indifferent,  but  conducive  to,  or  otherwise  associ- 


72 


INTRODUCTION. 


ated  with,  the  satisfaction  of  our  primitive  desires,  become 
in  themselves  sources  of  pleasure  more  valuable  than  the 
primitive  pleasures,  both  in  permanency,  in  the  space  of 
human  existence  that  they  are  capable  of  covering,  and 
even  in  intensity."  ^ 

And  now  the  anti-hedonist  has  to  admit,  on  his  part, 
that  "  on  special  occasions,  .  .  .  the  pleasure  of  achieve- 
ment may  itself  become  a  pursued  pleasure;"  and  that 
this  is  the  case  in  that  entire  class  of  pleasures  which  we 
call  "  pleasures  of  pursuit."  Hoffding,  indeed,  argues  that 
"  it  springs  from  a  distinct  abstraction,  when  the  feeling  of 
pleasure,  which  we  foresee  in  the  attainment  of  the  original 
object  of  the  impulse,  arouses  our  impulse."  ^  But  this 
abstraction,  though  difficult,  is  not  impossible.  We  can- 
not otherwise  interpret  the  "  epicurean  "  life,  and  we  can- 
not otherwise  explain  the  pleasure-side  of  the  ordinary 
moral  life.  Kay,  it  could  easily  be  shown  that  our  con- 
sciousness always  is  "  abstract,"  inasmuch  as  it  is  always 
focused  on  some  point ;  abstraction  is  only  the  other  side 
of  attention.  And  does  not  the  element  of  reflection  mean 
that,  however  apparently  objective,  the  life  of  Will  is  always 
essentially  and  fundamentally  subjective,  guided  by  an  in- 
tellectual comparison  of  different  ideas  of  self-satisfaction, 
or  of  different  selves  as  satisfied  by  the  pursuit  of  alter- 
native courses  of  activity?  Is  not  this  self-satisfaction 
always  the  real  object  ?  And  is  not  the  apparent  absence 
of  the  subjective  reference  in  some  lives,  and  on  certain 
occasions,  more  or  less  frequent,  in  all  lives,  to  be  traced 
to  the  varying  ratio  of  introspection  to  outwardness  and 
objectivity  in  different  individuals  and  in  the  same  in- 

1  'Utilitarianism,'  56.  -  'Psychology,'  323  (Eng.  tr.) 


THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL    BASIS. 


73 


dividual  at  different  times  ?  Some  men,  also,  are  more 
apt  to  lose  the  whole  in  the  parts,  the  wood  in  the  trees, 
than  others  ;  and  in  varying  moods  the  same  man  will  be 
more  occupied,  now  with  the  general  idea  of  self-satisfac- 
tion, now  with  the  idea  of  the  particular  things  w^hich 
yield  this  self-satisfaction.  It  may  be  admitted,  moreover, 
that  it  is  not  well  to  be  too  much  given  to  introspection, 
that,  on  the  whole,  the  objective  mood  and  temper  of  mind 
ought  to  be  encouraged  rather  than  the  subjective  and 
epicurean,  that  objectivity  and  enthusiasm  are  essential 
to  happiness.  But  this  objective  "  abstraction  "  does  not 
mean  the  elimination  of  subjectivity,  any  more  than  the 
opposite  or  subjective  "  abstraction  "  means  the  elimina- 
tion of  objectivity.  These  are  the  two  poles  between 
which  consciousness  fluctuates,  sometimes  approaching  the 
one,  sometimes  the  other.  Without  either  pole,  the 
voluntary  life,  as  we  know  it,  would  be  impossible.  The 
moral,  like  the  intellectual  life,  is  always  at  once  objective 
and  subjective.  The  idea  of  self-satisfaction  is  the  con- 
stant background  of  our  life's  activities.  But,  amid  the 
changing  phases  of  human  experience,  there  is  a  constant 
shifting  to  and  fro.  Sometimes  this  background  of  self- 
satisfaction  is  but  dimly  discerned;  the  action  fills  the 
foreground.  Again,  the  action  retreats,  and  the  back- 
ground once  more  stands  out  in  clear  relief.  Both  the 
objective  and  subjective  elements  are  present  in  every  act 
of  Will,  but  the  emphasis  or  accent  of  consciousness  may 
be  now  on  the  one,  now  on  the  other. 

We  have  now  determined,  as  precisely  as  we  can,  the 
function  of  feeling  in  the  life  of  Will.  First,  in  that 
animal  life  of  instinct  and  impulse  which,  though  invol- 


74 


INTRODUCTION. 


untary,  yet  contains  the  germs  of  volition,  we  saw  that 
the  otherwise  blind  activity  is  guided  by  the  illumination 
of  feeling.  Those  animal  tendencies  are  dark  enough, 
they  make  for  a  goal  by  the  animal  unseen,  along  a  path 
of  which  only  the  next  step  can  be  discerned;  it  is  a 
brief  straight  road,  that  of  animal  life,  and  travelled 
step  by  step.  Gradually,  as  we  rise  in  the  scale  of 
human  striving  and  achievement,  the  vision  grows  and 
strengthens,  and  further  reaches  of  the  road  are  seen, 
and  at  last  the  goal  itself  to  which  it  leads.  But  the 
guidance  of  feeling  is  not  even  now  given  up ;  it  is  only 
illuminated  by  the  fuller  light  of  intellectual  insight. 
The  goal  itself  is  seized  by  feeling  as  well  as  by  thought, 
and  the  several  steps  towards  it  sue  felt  as  well  as  knoivn. 
But  to  detach  feeling  from  thought,  and  to  say  that  we 
pursue  pleasure  only,  is  as  unscientific  as  to  detach 
thought  from  feeling,  and  to  say  that  our  active  life  con- 
tains no  element  of  feeling  at  all.  Life  means  interests 
or  focal  points  of  attention,  apperceptive  centres ;  and 
we  can  neither  have  interests  without  a  self  to  feel  them, 
nor  evolve  them  out  of  a  merely  sentient  self.  To  at- 
tempt either  explanation  is  to  attempt  an  unscientific 
and  contradictory  tou7'  de  force.  The  entrance  of  Will 
upon  the  field  of  activity  does  not  mean  the  deliverance 
from  the  guidance  of  feeling ;  what  it  does  mean  is  such  a 
transfiguration  of  the  old  guide  that  it  is  hard  to  recognise 
the  familiar  face  and  voice. 


-I 


PART   I. 


THE    MOEAL    IDEAL 


r 

i 


THE    MOEAL    IDEAL. 


ism. 


We  are  now  prepared  to  attempt  the  solution  of  the  ethical  Types  of 
problem—the  nature  of  the  Moral  Ideal  or  of  the  ethical  Theory:  ' 
End.     We   are  led   to   state  the   problem   in  this  way,  uig^S^'' 
whether  we  approach  it  from  the  ancient  standpoint  of  ^^^^*"^o°- 
Good,  or  from  the  modern  standpoint  of  Duty  and  Law. 
In  the  former  case,  we]^find  that  conduct,  being  "  impulse 
organised  by  the  reflective  conception  of  Ends,"  implies, 
as  its  unifying  or  organising  principle,  the  constant  pres- 
ence and  operation,  implicit  or  explicit,  of  some  single 
central  End,  of  some  single  Ideal  of  the  total  meaning  of 
life,  to  be  realised  in  the  details  of  its  several  activities. 
The  logic  of  the  life  of  a  rational  being  implies  the  guid- 
ance of  a  supreme  End  as  its  central  and  organising  prin- 
ciple.    The  question  of  Ethics  in  this  aspect  of  it  is, 
What  is  the  chief  End  of  man  ?    What  may  he,  being 
such  as  he  is,  worthily  set  before  him  as  the  Summum 
Bonum  of  his  life  ?    Which  of  the  alternative  and  conflict- 
ing types  of  self-hood  may  he  take  as  his  Ideal  ?    If,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  approach  the  problem  from  the  more 
modern  standpoint  of  Law  and  Duty,  we  are  led  to  sub- 
stantially the  same  statement  of  it.    A  rational  being  can- 


78 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


not,  as  such,  be  content  to  live  a  life  of  mere  obedience 
to  rule,  even  to  the  rule  of  Conscience.     Mere  authority, 
human  or  divine,  does  not  permanently  satisfy  him.     The 
conflicts,  or  at  least  the  difficulties,  which  arise  in  the 
application  of  the  several  moral  laws  or  principles  to  the 
details  of  practice,  lead  to  the  attempt  to  codify  these 
laws,  and  such  codification  implies  once  more  a  unifying 
principle— the  discovery  of  the  common  "  spirit  of  the 
laws."     For  their  absoluteness  pertains  to  the  spirit  and 
not  to  the  letter.     They  are  the  several  paths  towards 
some  absolute  Good.     Why  is  it  right  to  speak  the  truth, 
to  be  just,  and  temperate,  and  benevolent?    What  is  the 
common  Ideal'  of  which  these  are  the  several  manifesta- 
tions,—the   Ideal  which  abides   even  in  their  change? 
The  Law  of  the  several  moral  laws  can  be  found  only  in 
the  claim  of  an  absolute  Ideal ;  their  authority  must  find 
its  seat  and  explanation  in  the  persistent  and  rightful 
dominion  of  some  one  End  over  all  the  other  possible 
or  actual  ends  of  human  life. 

Now,  when  we  look  at  the  history  of  ethical  thought, 
we  find  that,  from  the  beginning  of  reflection  down  to  our 
own  time,  two  opposed  types  of  theory  have  maintained 
themselves,  and  each  type  has  based  itself,  more  or  less 
explicitly,  upon  a  corresponding  view  of  human  nature. 
On  the  one  hand,  man  has  been  regarded  as,  either  ex- 
clusively or  fundamentally,  a  sentient  being,  and  upon 
this   psychology  there  has   been   built  up   a   hedonistic 
theory  of  the  Moral  Ideal.    If  man  is  essentially  a  sen- 
tient being,  his  Good  must  be  a  sentient  Good,  or  Pleasure ; 
this  type  of  theory  we  may  call  Hedonism,  or  the  Ethics 
of  Sensibility.     It  is  the  theory  of  the  Cyrenaics  and 


INTRODUCTORY. 


79 


Epicureans  among  the  ancients,  and  of  the  Utilitarians, 
whether  empirical,  rational,  or  evolutional,  in  modern 
times.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  held,  with  no  less 
confidence,  that  man  is,  either  exclusively  or  essentially,  a 
rational  being,  and  that  his  Good  is,  therefore,  not  a  sen- 
tient but  a  rational  Good.  This  type  of  theory  we  may  call 
Eigorism,  or  the  Ethics  of  Eeason.  It  is  the  theory  of  the 
ancient  Cynics  and  Stoics,  and  in  modern  times  of  the 
Intuitionists  and  of  Kant.  Either  theory  might  claim 
for  itself  the  vague  term  ''Self-realisation."  The  one 
finds  in  feeling,  the  other  in  reason,  the  deeper  and  truer 
self ;  to  the  one  the  claims  of  the  sentient,  to  the  other 
the  claims  of  the  rational  self,  seem  paramount. 

A  closer  study  of  the  course  of  moral  reflection  re- 
veals two  forms — an  extreme  and  a  moderate,  of  either 
type  of  ethical  theory.  Extreme  Hedonism,  excluding 
Eeason  altogether,  or  resolving  it  into  Sensibility,  would 
exhibit  the  ideal  life  as  a  life  of  pure  sentiency,  un- 
disturbed by  reason,  or  into  which  reason  has  been  ab- 
sorbed. Extreme  Eigorism,  on  the  other  hand,  denying 
the  place  of  feeling  in  the  Good  of  a  rational  being, 
would  exhibit  the  ideal  life  as  a  life  of  pure  thought, 
unstained  by  any  intrusion  of  sensibility.  But  neither 
of  these  extremes  can  long  maintain  itself.  Neither 
element  can  be  absolutely  excluded  without  manifestly 
deducting  from  the  total  efficiency  of  the  resulting  life. 
Accordingly,  we  find  that,  while  the  logic  of  their  posi- 
tions would  separate  the  theories  as  widely  as  possible, 
the  necessities  of  the  moral  life  itself  tend  to  bring  them 
nearer  to  each  other.  Hedonism  cannot  long  avoid  the 
reference  to  Eeason,  Eigorism  the   reference  to   Sensi- 


80 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


bility.     Hence  result  a  moderate  version  of  the  Ethics 
of  Sensibility,  which,  instead  of  excluding  reason,  sub- 
ordinates it  to  feeling,  and  a  moderate  version  of  the 
Ethics  of  Reason,  which,  instead  of  excluding  feelmg,  sub- 
ordinates it  to  reason.     Moderate  Hedonism  recognises 
the  function  of  reason,  first  in  devising  the  means  to- 
wards an  end  which  is  constituted  by  sensibility,  and 
later  even  in  the  constitution  of  the  end  itself.     Moderate 
Ricrorism  recognises  the  place  of  sensibility,  at  first  as 
the  mere  accompaniment  of  the  good  life,  and  later  as 
entering  into  the  very  texture  of  goodness  itself.     Such 
an  approach   of   the  one   theory   to   the   other,  such   a 
tendency  to  compromise  between  them,  suggests  the  more 
excellent  way  of  a  theory  which  shall  base  itself  on  the 
total  nature  of  man,  and  shall  correlate  its  various  ele- 
ments of  thought  and  feeling  in  the  unity  of  a   total 
personal  life.     This  theory  we  may  call,  after  Aristotle, 
Eudffimonism,  or  the  Ethics  of  Personality ;  and  we  shall 
endeavour  to  demonstrate  its  necessity  and  value  by  a 
critical  consideration,  first,  of  Hedonism,  the  Ethics  of 
Sensibility;  and,   secondly,  of   Rigorism,   the  Ethics   of 
Reason. 


81 


CHAPTER    I. 

HEDONISM,   OK   THE   ETHICS   OF  SENSIBILITY. 

T. — Development  of  the  Theory. 
1.  The  earliest  statement  of  the  hedonistic  view  of  life  (A)  Pure 

1         ,  -.TT  .  *    .     •  Hedonism, 

IS  also  the  most  extreme.  We  owe  it  to  Aristippus,  the  or  Cyrenai- 
founder  of  the  Cyrenaic  school.  He  had  learned  from 
Socrates  that  the  true  wisdom  of  life  lies  in  foresight 
or  insight  into  the  consequences  of  our  actions,  in  an 
accurate  calculation  of  their  results,  pleasurable  and 
painful,  in  the  distant  as  well  as  in  the  immediate  future. 
The  chief  and  only  good  of  life,  then,  is  pleasure.  And 
all  pleasures  are  alike  in  kind;  they  differ  only  in  in- 
tensity or  degree.  Socrates  had  taught  that  the  pleasures 
of  the  soul  are  preferable  to  those  of  the  body;  Aris- 
tippus finds  the  latter  to  be  better — that  is,  intenser — 
than  the  former.  He  had  also  learned  from  Protagoras 
that  the  sensation  of  the  moment  is  the  only  ultimate 
reality,  and  his  scepticism  of  the  future,  in  comparison 
with  the  certainty  of  the  present,  leads  him  to  refuse  the 
Socratic  principle  of  calculation.  If  the  momentary  ex- 
perience is  the  only  certain  reality,  then  the  calculating 
wisdom  of  Socrates,  with  its  measuring-line  laid  to  the 

F 


82 


THE   MORAL    IDEAL. 


fleeting  moments,  is  not  the  best  method  of  life.  Rather 
ought  we  to  make  the  most  of  each  moment  ere  it  passes ; 
for,  even  while  we  have  been  calculating  its  value,  it  has 
escaped  us,  and  the  moments  do  not  return.  Ought  we 
not,  then,  with  a  miser's  jealousy,  to  guard  the  interest  of 
the  moment  ?  is  not  this  the  true  economy  of  life  ?  To 
sacrifice  the  present  to  the  future,  is  unwarranted  and 
perilous;  the  present  is  ours,  the  future  may  never  be. 
The  very  fact  that  we  are  the  children  of  time,  and  not 
of  eternity,  makes  the  claim  of  the  present — ay,  even  of 
the  momentary  present  —  imperious  and  supreme.      To 

"  look  before  and  after  "  were  to  defeat  the  end  of  life,  to 

ft 

miss  that  pleasure  which  is  essentially  a  thing  of  the 
present.  Xot  the  Socratic  prudence,  therefore,  but  a 
careless  surrender  to  present  joys,  is  the  true  rule  of  life. 
We  live  only  from  moment  to  moment ;  let  us  live,  then, 
in  the  moments,  packing  them  full,  ere  yet  they  pass, 
with  intensest  gratification.  A  life  of  feeling,  pure  and 
simple,  heedless  and  unthinking,  undisturbed  by  reason, 
— such  is  the  Cyrenaic  ideal.  It  is  a  product  of  the  sunny 
Pagan  spirit,  which  has  not  yet  felt  "the  heavy  and  the 
weary  weight  of  all  this  unintelligible  world."  And  if 
such  a  creed  is  founded  in  a  deep  scepticism,  there  is  no 
pain  or  despair  in  the  scepticism,  but  rather  a  calm  and 
glad  acceptance  of  the  ethical  limitations  which  it  im- 
plies. Aristippus  is  glad  to  be  rid  of  the  Socratic  concern 
for  an  eternal  and  ideal  welfare  in  which  he  has  ceased 
to  believe.  His  is,  indeed,  a  life  without  a  horizon,  it 
has  shrunk  within  the  compass  of  the  momentary  present, 
it  is  a  life  of  pure  sensibility,  with  no  end  to  satisfy  the 
reason.    Yet  it  is  a  life  that  satisfies  him.     For  is  not  the 


HEDONISM. 


83 


horizon  apt  to  be  dark  and  threatening,  and  to  sadden 
the  sunshine  of  the  present  with  its  lowering  clouds  ?  and 
what  is  reason  but  sensation  after  all  ? 

Cyrenaicism  could  hardly  be  the  creed  of  the  modern 
Christian  world.  For  us  such  an  ideal  would  be  at  best 
an  ideal  of  despair  rather  than  of  hope.  Reason  could 
hardly  in  us  be  so  utterly  subjected  to  sensibility;  such 
scepticism  would,  at  any  rate,  make  us  so  "sick  and 
sorry,"  that  we  should  lose  that  very  joy  in  the  present 
which  the  Cyrenaic  reaped  from  his  unconcern  for  the 
morrow.  And  yet  our  century  and  our  generation  has 
witnessed  an  attempted  revival  of  the  Cyrenaic  ideal. 
Did  not  Byron  and  Heine,  out  of  their  scepticism  of  any 
other  meaning  in  life,  use  words  like  these  ?  Was  not 
their  message  to  their  fellows  that  to  live  is  to  feel,  and 
that  the  measure  of  life's  fulness  is  the  intensity  of  its 
passion?  And  what  else  does  ^stheticism  mean  than 
a  recoil  from  an  intellectual  to  a  sentient  ideal ;  is  it 
fanciful  to  see  in  Mr  Pater's  '  Marius,  the  Epicurean '  a 
splendid  attempt  to  rehabilitate  the  Cyrenaic  view  of  life  ? 
Its  closing  words  tell  how  perfectly  its  author  has  caught 
the  echo  of  that  ancient  creed :  "  How  goodly  had  the 
vision  been !  one  long  unfolding  of  beauty  and  energy  in 
things,  upon  the  closing  of  which  he  might  gratefully 
utter  his  '  Vixi.'  .  .  .  For  still,  in  a  shadowy  world,  his 
deeper  wisdom  had  ever  been,  with  a  sense  of  economy, 
with  a  jealous  estimate  of  gain  and  loss,  to  use  life,  not 
as  a  means  to  some  problematic  end,  but,  as  far  as  might 
be,  from  dying  hour  to  dying  hour,  an  end  in  itself,  a  kind 
of  music,  all  sufficing  to  the  duly  trained  ear,  even  as  it 
died  out  on  the  air." 


84 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


And  although  it  is  only  in  the  school  of  Aristippus  that 
this  pure  form  of  the  hedonistic  creed  has  found  its  philo- 
sophic expression,  it  is  a  "judgment  of  life"  which  has 
a^ain  and  again  gained  utterance  for  itself  in  literature. 
It  is  a  mood  of  the  human  mind  which  must  recur  with 
every  lapse  into  moral  scepticism.  Whenever  life  loses 
its  meaning,  or  when  that  meaning  sinks  to  the  experience 
of  the  present,  when  no  enduring  purpose  or  permanent 
value  is  found  in  this  fleeting  earthly  life,  when  in  it  is 
discerned  no  Whence  or  Whither,  but  only  a  brief  blind 
process,  then  the  conclusion  is  drawn,  with  a  fine  logical 
perception,  that  the  interests  of  the  present  have  a 
paramount  claim,  and  that  present  enjoyment  and  un- 
concern is  the  only  good  in  life.     If  indeed 

*'  We  are  no  other  than  a  moving  row 
Of  Magic  Shadow-shapes  that  come  and  go 

Round  with  the  Sun-iUurain'd  Lantern  held 
In  Midnight  bv  the  Master  of  the  Show ; " 

if  the  movement  of  our  life  is  from  Nothing  to  Nothing; 

if,  truly  seen,  that  life  is  but 

"  A  Moment's  Halt — a  momentary  taste 
Of  Being  from  the  Well  amid  the  Waste — 

And  lo  !  the  phantom  caravan  has  reach'd 
The  Nothing  it  set  out  from," — 

then  surely  Omar's  logic  is  irresistible : 

"  Some  for  the  Glories  of  This  World  ;  and  some 
Sigh  for  the  Prophet's  Paradise  to  come  ; 

Ah  !  take  the  Cash,  and  let  the  Credit  go, 
Nor  heed  the  rumble  of  a  distant  Drum. 

Come,  fill  the  Cup,  and  on  the  fire  of  Spring 
Your  Winter-garment  of  Repentance  fling  : 

The  Bird  of  Time  has  but  a  little  way 
To  flv — and  lo  !  the  bird  is  on  the  wing. 


HEDONISM. 


85 


I  must  abjure  the  Balm  of  life,  I  must, 
Scared  by  some  After-reckoning  ta'en  on  trust, 
Or  lured  with  Hope  of  some  Diviner  Drink, 
To  fill  the  Cup — when  crumbled  into  Dust  ! 

Oh  threats  of  Hell  and  hopes  of  Paradise  ! 
One  thing  at  least  is  certain — This  life  flies  ; 
One  thing  is  certain,  and  the  rest  is  Lies  ; 
The  Flower  that  once  has  blown  for  ever  dies."  ^ 


It  is  the  logic  of  Horace  as  well  as  of  Omar ;  for  though 
the  Eoman  poet  is  rather  an  Epicurean  than  a  Cyrenaic, 
yet  he  strikes  the  true  Cyrenaic  chord  again  and  again. 
Man  is  a  creature  of  time;  why  should  he  toil  for  an 
eternal  life  ?  "  Spring  flowers  keep  not  always  the  same 
charm,  nor  beams  the  ruddy  moon  with  face  unchanged ; 
why  harass  with  eternal  designs  a  mind  too  weak  to  com- 
pass them  ?  "  "  God  in  His  providence  shrouds  in  the 
darkness  of  night  the  issue  of  future  time,  and  smiles  if  a 
mortal  flutter  to  pierce  farther  than  he  may.  Be  careful 
to  regulate  serenely  what  is  present  with  you ;  all  else 
is  swept  along  in  the  fashion  of  the  stream,  which  at  one 
time,  within  the  heart  of  its  channel,  peacefully  glides 
down  to  the  Tuscan  sea;  at  another,  whirls  along  worn 
stones  and  uprooted  trees  and  flocks  and  houses  all 
together,  amid  the  roaring  of  the  hills  and  neighbouring 
wood,  whene'er  a  furious  deluge  chafes  the  quiet  rills. 
He  will  live  master  of  himself,  and  cheerful,  who  has 
the  power  to  say  from  day  to  day,  '  I  have  lived !  to- 
morrow let  the  Sire  overspread  the  sky  either  with 
cloudy  gloom  or  with  unsullied  light;  yet  he  will  not 
render  of  none  effect  aught  that  lies  behind,  nor  shape 

^  '  Rubdiyat '  of  Omar  Khayydm.     Fitzgerald's  translation. 


86 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


anew  and  make  a  thing  not  done,  what  once  the  flying 
hour  has  borne  away.' "  ^ 

All  things  change  and  pass  away,  nor  has  man  himself 
any  abiding  destiny ;  his  best  wisdom  is  to  clutch  from  the 
hands  of  Fate  the  flowers  she  offers,  for  they  perish  even 
as  he  thinks  to  pluck  them.    This  logic  of  Omar  and  of 
Horace  is  also  the  logic  of  '  Ecclesiastes/     "  Too  much 
wisdom  is  much  grief,  and  he  that  increaseth  knowledge 
increaseth  sorrow.    .   .    .    For  what  hath  man  of  all  his 
labour,  and  of  all  the  vexation  of  his  heart,  wherein  he 
hath  laboured  under  the  sun  ?  .  .  .  Then  I  commanded 
mirth,  because  ^  man  hath  no  better  thing  than  to  eat,  and 
to  drink,  and  to  be  merry  ;  for  that  shall  abide  with  him  of 
his  labour  the  days  of  his  life  which  God  giveth  him  under 
the  sun."  When  we  compare  the  Eastern  with  the  Western, 
the  Persian  and  Hebraic  with  the  Greek  and  Eoman,  ex- 
pressions of  the  Cyrenaic  principle,  we  cannot  help  feeling 
that,  while  the  common  basis  of  both  is  a  profound  moral 
scepticism,  the  loss  of  faith  in  any  enduring  end  or  sub- 
stantial good  in  life,  this  scepticism  has  engendered  in  the 
one  case  a  pessimistic  mood  which  is  entirely  absent  from 
the  other.     Omar  and  Ecclesiastes  clutch  at  the  delights 
of  sense  and  time,  the  pleasure  of  the  moment,  as  the  only 
refuge  from  the  moral  despair  which  reflection  breeds.    The 
only  cure  for  the  ills  of  thought  is  careless  and  unthink- 
ing abandon  to  the  pleasures  of  the  present.     But  always 
in  the  background  of  the  mind,  and,  whenever  reflection 
is  reawakened,  in  the  foreground  too,  is  the  sad  and  irre- 
sistible conviction  that,  for  a  rational  being,  such  a  merely 
sentient  Good  is  in  strictness  no  Good  at  all ;  that  for  a 

1  Horace,  Ode  xxix.  Bk.  iii.  (Lonsdale  and  Lee's  transl.) 


HEDONISM. 


87 


being  whose  very  nature  it  is  to  "  look  before  and  after," 
and  to  consider  the  total  meaning  of  his  life,  such  a  pre- 
occupation with  the  experience  of  the  moment,  as  the  only 
moral  reality,  must  render  life  essentially  unmeaning  and 
not  worth  living.  It  is  little  wonder,  therefore,  that  this 
moral  scepticism  soon  became  philosophically  speechless. 
Even  the  Cyrenaics  were  unable  to  maintain  their  self- 
consistency  in  the  statement  of  it.  An  ethic  of  pure 
Sensibility,  an  absolute  Hedonism,  is  impossible.  A 
merely  sentient  Good  cannot  be  the  Good  of  a  being  who  is 
rational  as  well  as  sentient ;  the  true  life  of  a  reflective 
being  cannot  be  unreflective.  In  order  to  construct  an 
Ideal,  some  reference  to  reason  is  necessary ;  even  a  suc- 
cessful sentient  life  implies  the  guidance  and  operation  of 
thought.  Accordingly,  we  find  even  the  Cyrenaics  admit- 
ting, in  spite  of  themselves,  that  prudence  is  essential  to 
the  attainment  of  pleasure.  A  man  must  be  master  of 
himself,  as  a  rider  is  master  of  his  horse ;  he  must  be  able 
to  say  of  his  pleasures  that  he  is  their  possessor,  not  they 
his — €X(o,  ouK  exofJ^ai,  Such  self-mastery  and  self-posses- 
sion is  the  work  of  reason,  and  a  life  which  is  not  thus 
rationally  ordered  must  soon  be  wrecked  on  the  shoals  of 
appetite  and  passion. 

2.  This   rehabilitation   of   the    Socratic   msLStei-Yiitne  (B)  Modi- 
of  prudence,  suggested  by  the  Cyrenaics,  was  completed  ism :  (a) 
by  the  Epicureans,  who,  after  the  Platonic  and  Aristo-  Epicure- 
telian  insistence  on  the  supreme  claims  of  reason  in  the  ^^^^^' 
conduct  of  human  life,  find  it  impossible  to  conceive  a 
Good  from  which  reason  has  been  eliminated,  or  to  which 
reason  does  not  point  the  way.    The  end  of  life,  they  hold, 


88 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


is  not  the  pleasure  of  the  moment,  but  a  sum  of  pleasures, 
a  pleasant  life.  All  that  was  necessary,  to  effect  the  transi- 
tion from  the  Cyrenaic  extreme  to  this  moderate  type  of 
Hedonism,  was  to  press  to  its  logical  development  the 
Socratic  principle  that  a  truly  happy,  or  consistently 
pleasant  life,  must  be  also  a  rational,  reflective,  and  con- 
siderate life.  Even  within  the  Cyrenaic  school,  we  find 
an  approach  towards  the  moderate  or  Epicurean  position. 
Theodorus,  a  later  member  of  the  school,  holds  that  the 
end  is  not  momentary  pleasure,  but  a  permanent  state  of 
"  gladness  "  (%a/3a) ;  and  Hegesias,  still  later,  maintains  that 
painlessness,  re^hed  through  indifference  to  pain,  rather 
than  positive  pleasure  or  enjoyment,  is  the  attainable  end 
of  life.  These  suggestions  were  developed,  through  the 
re-assertion  of  the  Socratic  principle  of  prudence,  strength- 
ened by  the  Platonic  and  Aristotelian  doctrine  of  the  guid- 
ing function  of  reason  in  the  life  of  a  rational  being,  into 
the  Epicurean  system, 

Epicurus  fully  recognises  the  indispensableness  of  reason 
in  the  conduct  of  life.  The  end  is  pleasure,  but  this  end 
cannot  be  attained  except  under  the  guidance  of  reason ; 
feeling  would  be  but  a  blind  and  perilous  guide  to  its  own 
satisfaction.  Reason  is  the  handmaid  of  sensibility,  and 
without  the  aid  of  the  former  the  latter  would  be  reduced 
to  impotency.  The  task  of  life  is  discovered,  and  its 
accomplishment  is  tested,  by  sensibility ;  but  the  execution 
of  the  task  is  the  work  of  reason.  For  it  is  reason  alone 
that  makes  possible  the  most  perfect  gratification  of  feel- 
ing, eliminating  the  pain  as  far  as  possible,  reducing  the 
shocks  and  jars  to  a  minimum,  and,  where  the  pain  is  un- 
avoidable, showing  how  it  is  the  way  to  a  larger  and  more 


HEDONISM. 


89 


enduring,  a  deeper  and  intenser,  pleasure.  The  happiness 
of  man  is  a  subtler  and  more  enduring  satisfaction  than 
that  of  which  the  animal,  preoccupied  with  the  feeling  of 
the  moment,  is  capable.  Man's  susceptibilities  to  pleasure 
and  pain  are  so  much  keener  and  more  varied,  his  horizon, 
as  a  rational  being,  is  so  much  larger  than  the  animal's, 
that  the  same  interpretation  will  not  serve  for  both  lives. 
He  cannot  shut  out  the  past  and  future,  and  surrender 
himself,  with  careless  limitation,  to  the  momentary  N'ow. 
It  is  the  outlook,  the  horizon,  the  prospect  and  the  retro- 
spect, that  give  the  tone  to  his  present  experience.  He 
abides,  though  his  experience  changes ;  and  his  happiness 
must,  just  because  it  is  his,  be  permanent  and  abiding  as 
the  self  whose  happiness  it  is.  Atomic  moments  of  pleas- 
ure cannot,  therefore,  be  the  Good  of  man ;  that  Good 
must  be  a  Life  of  pleasure.  An  unorganised  or  chaotic 
life,  at  the  beck  and  call  of  every  stray  desire,  would  be  a 
life  not  of  happiness  but  of  misery  to  such  a  being  as 
man;  in  virtue  of  his  rational  nature,  he  must  organise 
his  life,  must  build  up  its  moments  into  the  hours  and 
days  and  years  of  a  total  experience.  While,  therefore, 
the  end  or  fundamental  conception  under  which  he  must 
bring  all  his  separate  activities,  the  ultimate  unifying 
principle  of  his  life,  is  sentient  satisfaction ;  while  the 
ultimate  term  of  human  experience  is  not  reason,  but  sen- 
sibility, and  man's  Good  is  essentially  identical  with  the 
animal's,  yet  so  different  are  the  means  to  their  accom- 
plishment, so  different  is  the  conduct  of  the  two  lives, 
that  the  interests  of  clear  thinking  demand  the  emphatic 
assertion  of  the  difference,  no  less  than  of  the  identity. 
"Wherefore,"  says  Epicurus,  "we  call  pleasure  the  alpha 


90 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


and  omega  of  a  blessed  life.  Pleasure  is  our  first  and 
kindred  good.  From  it  is  the  commencement  of  every 
choice  and  every  aversion,  and  to  it  we  come  back,  and 
make  feeling  the  rule  by  which  to  judge  of  every  good 
thing.  And  since  pleasure  is  our  first  and  native  good, 
for  that  reason  we  do  not  choose  every  pleasure  whatso- 
ever, but  ofttimes  pass  over  many  pleasures  when  a  greater 
annoyance  ensues  from  them.  And  ofttimes  we  consider 
pains  superior  to  pleasures,  and  submit  to  the  pain  for  a 
long  time,  when  it  is  attended  for  us  with  a  greater  pleas- 
ure. All  pleasure,  therefore,  because  of  its  kinship  with 
our  nature,  is  a  good,  but  it  is  not  in  all  cases  our  choice ; 
even  as  every  pain  is  an  evil,  though  pain  is  not  always, 
and  in  everv  case,  to  be  shunned.  It  is,  however,  by  meas- 
uring  one  against  another,  and  by  looking  at  the  conve- 
niences and  inconveniences,  that  all  these  things  must  be 
judged.  Sometimes  we  treat  the  good  as  an  evil,  and  the 
evil,  on  the  contrary,  as  a  good."  "  It  is  not  an  unbroken 
succession  of  drinking  feasts  and  of  revelry,  not  the  pleas- 
ures of  sexual  love,  nor  the  enjoyment  of  the  fish  and 
other  delicacies  of  a  splendid  table,  which  produce  a  pleas- 
ant life ;  it  is  sober  reasoning,  searching  out  the  reasons 
for  every  choice  and  avoidance,  and  banishing  those  beliefs 
through  which  greatest  tumults  take  possession  of  the 
soul.  Of  all  this,  the  beginning,  and  the  greatest  good,  is 
prudence.  Wherefore,  prudence  is  a  more  precious  thing 
even  than  philosophy :  from  it  grow  all  the  other  virtues, 
for  it  teaches  that  we  cannot  lead  a  life  of  pleasure  which 
is  not  also  a  life  of  prudence,  honour,  and  justice ;  nor  lead 
a  life  of  prudence,  honour,  and  justice  which  is  not  also  a 
life  of  pleasure.     For  the  virtues  have  grown  into  one 


HEDONISM. 


91 


l>^ 


with  a  pleasant  life,  and  a  pleasant  life  is  inseparable 
from  them."  ^ 

Deeper  reflection  upon  the  course  of  human  affairs  led 
the  Epicureans,  as  it  had  led  the  Cyrenaics,  to  pessimism. 
The  Good,  in  the  sense  of  positive  pleasure,  is  not,  they 
find,  the  lot  of  man ;  all  that  he  may  hope  for  is  the  nega- 
tive pleasure  that  comes  with  the  release  from  pain.  "  By 
pleasure  we  mean  the  absence  of  pain  in  the  body  and 
trouble  in  the  soul."  And  even  this  is  not  always  to  be 
attained.  If  we  would  escape  the  pain  of  unsatisfied 
desire,  we  must  reduce  our  desires.  Fortune  is  to  be 
feared,  even  when  bringing  gifts ;  for  she  is  capricious,  and 
may  at  any  moment  withhold  her  gifts.  Let  us  give  as 
few  hostages  to  Fortune,  then,  as  we  can ;  let  us  assert  our 
independence  of  her,  and,  in  our  own  self-sufficiency,  be- 
come indifferent  to  her  fickle  moods.  Let  us  return,  as  far 
as  may  be,  to  the  "  state  of  nature,"  for  nature's  wants  are 
few.  "  Of  desires  some  are  natural  and  some  are  ground- 
less ;  and  of  the "  natural,  some  are  necessary  as  well  as 
natural,  and  some  are  natural  only.  And  of  the  necessary 
desires,  some  are  necessary  if  we  are  to  be  happy,  and 
some  if  the  body  is  to  remain  unperturbed,  and  some  if 
we  are  even  to  live.  By  the  clear  and  certain  understand- 
ing of  these  things  we  learn  to  make  every  preference  and 
aversion,  so  that  the  body  may  have  health  and  the  soul 
tranquillity,  seeing  that  this  is  the  sum  and  end  of  a 
blessed  life.  For  the  end  of  all  our  actions  is  to  be  free 
from  pain  and  fear ;  and  when  once  we  have  attained  this, 
all  the  tempest  of  the  soul  is  laid,  seeing  that  the  living 
creature  has  not  to  go  to  find  something  that  is  wanting, 

1  Epicurus'  Letter  (Wallace's  'Epicureanism,'  129-131). 


92 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


93 


or  to  seek  something  else  by  which  the  good  of  the  soul 
and  of  the  body  will  be  fulfilled.  When  we  need  pleasure, 
is,  when  we  are  grieved  because  of  the  absence  of  pleasure ; 
but  when  we  feel  no  pain,  then  we  no  longer  stand  in  need 
of  pleasure."  ^ 

The  great  maxim  of  the  Epicurean  life  is,  therefore,  like 
that  of  the  Stoic,  that  we  cultivate  a  temper  of  indiffer- 
ence to  pleasure  and  pain,  such  a  tranquillity  of  soul 
(aTapa^Lo)  as  no  assault  of  fortune  shall  avail  to  disturb, 
such  an  inner  peace  of  spirit  as  shall  make  us  independent 

of  fortune's  freaks.     For  the  Epicureans  have  lost   the 

ft 

Socratic  faith  in  a  divine  Providence,  the  counterpart  of 
human  prudence,  which  secures  that  a  well-planned  life 
shall  be  successful  in  attaining  its  goal  of  pleasure.  Their 
gods  have  retired  from  the  world,  and  become  careless  of 
human  affairs.  The  true  wisdom,  then,  is  to  break  the 
bonds  that  link  our  destiny  with  the  world's,  and  to  assert 
our  independence  of  fate.  Through  moderation  of  desire, 
and  tranquillity  of  soul,  we  become  masters  of  our  own 
destiny,  and  learn  that  our  true  good  is  to  be  sought 
within  rather  than  without.  It  is  our  fear  of  external 
evil  or  calamity,  not  calamity  itself,  that  is  the  chief 
source  of  pain.  Let  us  cease  to  fear  that  which  in  itself 
is  not  terrible.  Even  death,  the  greatest  of  so-called  evils, 
the  worst  of  all  the  blows  which  fortune  can  inflict  upon 
us,  is  an  evil  only  to  him  who  fears  it ;  even  to  it  we  can 
become  indifferent.  "  Accustom  thyself  in  the  belief  that 
death  is  nothing  to  us ;  for  good  and  evil  are  only  where 
they  are  felt,  and  death  is  the  absence  of  all  feeling; 
therefore  a  right  understanding  that  death  is  nothing  to 

^  Epicurus'  Letter,  loc.  cit. 


us  makes  enjoyable  the  mortality  of  life,  not  by  adding  to 
years  an  illimitable  time,  but  by  taking  away  the  yearn- 
ing after  immortality.  For  in  life  there  can  be  nothing  to 
fear  to  him  who  has  thoroughly  apprehended  that  there 
is  nothing  to  cause  fear  in  what  time  we  are  not  alive. 
Foolish,  therefore,  is  the  man  who  says  that  he  fears  death, 
not  because  it  will  pain  when  it  comes,  but  because  it 
pains  in  the  prospect.  Whatsoever  causes  no  annoyance 
when  it  is  present  causes  only  a  groundless  pain  by  the 
expectation  thereof.  Death,  therefore,  the  most  awful  of 
evils,  is  nothing  to  us,  seeing  that  when  we  are,  death 
is  not  yet,  and  when  death  comes,  then  we  are  not.  It  is 
nothing,  then,  either  to  the  living  or  the  dead ;  for  it  is 
not  found  with  the  living,  and  the  dead  exist  no  longer." 

Of  this  Epicurean  ideal  we  could  not  have  a  better 
picture  than  that  which  Horace  gives  in  the  Seventh 
Satire  of  the  Second  Book :  "  Who,  then,  is  free  ?  He 
who  is  wise,  over  himself  true  lord,  unterrified  by  want 
and  death  and  bonds ;  who  can  his  passions  stem,  and 
glory  scorn ;  in  himself  complete,  like  a  sphere,  perfectly 
round  ;  so  that  no  external  object  can  rest  on  the  polished 
surface ;  against  such  a  one  Fortune's  assault  is  broken." 
It  is  an  ideal  of  rational  self-control,  of  deliverance  from 
the  storms  of  passion  through  the  peace-speaking  voice  of 
reason.  The  state  of  sensibility  is  still  the  ethical  End 
and  criterion ;  but  all  the  attention  is  directed  to  the 
means  by  which  that  End  may  be  compassed,  and  the 
means  are  not  sentient  but  rational.  Nay,  the  End  itself, 
as  we  have  just  seen,  is  rather  a  state  of  indifference,  of 
neutral  feeling,  of  insensibility,  than  a  positive  state  of 
feeling  at  all. 


94 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


95 


(b)  Modern 
Hedonism, 
or  Utili- 
tarianism. 
Its  chief 
variations 
from  Anci- 
ent :  (1) 
Optimistic 
V.  Pessim- 
istic. 


3.  Modern    Hedonism    differs    widely   from    Ancient, 
British  from  Greek.    If  we  take  Mill  as  the  representa- 
tive of  the  modern  doctrine,  perhaps  the  differences  may  be 
said  to  resolve  themselves,  in  the  last  analysis,  into  three. 
(1)  Ancient  Hedonism,  whether  of  the  Cyrenaic  or  of 
the  Epicurean  type,  was  pessimistic.     Modern  Hedonism 
is,  on  the  whole,  optimistic.^     Where  the  Greek  moralists 
found  themselves  forced  to  conceive  the  End  as  escape 
from   pain  rather  than  as  positive   pleasure,  their  sue- 
cessors  in  England  (as  well  as  recently  in  Germany)  have 
no  hesitation  in  returning  to  the  original  Cyrenaic  con- 
ception  of  the  End  as  real  enjoyment,  as  not  merely  the 
absence  of  pain,  but  the  presence  of  pleasure.     Mill,  it 
is  true,  in  a  significant  admission,  made  almost  incident- 
ally in  the  course   of   his   main   argument,  comes   near 
striking  once  more  the  old  pessimistic  note.     "Though 
it  is  only  in  a  very  imperfect  state  of  the  world's  arrange- 
ments that  any  one  can  best  serve  the  happiness  of  others 
by  the  absolute  sacrifice  of  his  own,  yet  so  long  as  the 
world  is  in  that  imperfect  state,  I  fully  acknowledge  that 
the  readiness  to  make  such  a  sacrifice  is  the  highest  virtue 
to  be  found  in  man.     I  will  add,  that  in  this  condition 
of  the  world,  paradoxical  as  the  assertion  may  be,  the 
conscious  ability  to  do  without  happiness  gives  the  best 
prospect  of  realising  such  happiness  as  is  attainable.     For 
nothing    except   that   consciousness   can  raise  a   person 
above  the  chances  of  life,  by  making  him  feel  that,  let 
fate  and  fortune  do  their  worst,  they  have  not  power  to 
subdue  him ;  which,  once  felt,  frees  him  from  excess  of 

1  The  pessimistic  tendency  has  of  late,  to  a  certain  extent,  reasserted 
itself. 


anxiety  concerning  the  evils  of  life,  and  enables  him, 
like  many  a  Stoic  in  the  worst  times  of  the  Eoman 
Empire,  to  cultivate  in  tranquillity  the  sources  of  satis- 
faction accessible  to  him,  without  concerning  himself 
about  the  uncertainty  of  their  duration,  any  more  than 
about  their  inevitable  end."  ^  But  Mill  is  delivered  from 
pessimism  by  his  firm  conviction  that  the  condition  of 
the  world  is  changing  for  the  better,  and  that  in  the 
end  the  course  of  virtue  must  "  run  smooth."  The  source 
of  this  confidence,  in  Mill  and  his  successors,  is  not  the 
rehabilitation  of  the  old  Socratic  faith  in  a  divine  Provi- 
dence ;  another  ground  of  confidence  is  found  in  the 
new  insight  into  the  course  of  things  which  Science  has 
brought  to  man.  Knowledge  is  Power,  and  the  might 
of  virtue  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  has  Nature  on  its  side. 
The  principle  of  Evolution,  it  is  maintained,  shows  us 
that  goodness  does  not  work  against  Nature,  but  rather 
assists  Nature  in  her  work.  Hedonism,  therefore,  finds 
a  new  basis  in  Evolutionism,  and  puts  forward  the  new 
claim  of  being  the  only  "  scientific "  interpretation  of 
morality.  Yet  we  find  the  most  brilliant  living  Evolu- 
tionist maintaining  that  the  "  ethical  process  "  and  the 
"cosmical  process"  are  fundamentally  antagonistic,-  and 
one  of  the  ablest  of  living  evolutionary  hedonists  ad- 
mitting that  "the  attempt  to  establish  an  absolute  co- 
incidence between  virtue  and  happiness  is  in  ethics  what 
the  attempting  to  square  the  circle  or  to  discover  per- 
petual motion  is  in  geometry  and  mechanics."^ 

^  '  Utilitarianism,'  ch.  ii. 

-  Huxley,  Romanes  Lectures,  'Evolution  and  Ethics.' 

3  Leslie  Stephen,  '  Science  of  Ethics. ' 


I  1 


9G 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


97 


(2)  Altru- 
istic V. 
Egoistic. 


(2)  The  standpoint  of   ancient  Hedonism  was  that  of 
the  individual,  the  standpoint  of  modern  is  that  of  society 
or  mankind  in  general,  or  even,  as  with  Mill,  of  the  entire 
sentient  creation.     While  ancient  Hedonism  was  egoistic, 
the  modern  is  altruistic  or  universalistic.     "  The  greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  number"  has  taken  the  place 
of  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  individual ;  the  End  has 
been  extended  beyond  the  conception  of  its  ancient  ad- 
vocates.    The  "  wise  man "  of  the  Epicurean  school  was 
wise  for  his  own  interests;  his  chief  virtues  were  self- 
sufficiency   and   eelf-dependence.      It  is   true   that    the 
Epicurean  society  was  held  together  by  the  practice,  on 
a  fine  scale,  of  the  virtue  of  Friendship,  and  that  they 
lived,  in  many  respects,  a  common  life ;  but  this  feature 
of  their  practice   had   no   counterpart  in   their   ethical 
theory.     The  modern  hedonist,  realising  this  defect,  and 
the  necessity  of  differentiating  his  expanded  theory  of  the 
End  from  the  narrow  conception  of  the  elder  school,  has 
invented  a   new  name  to   express  this  difference— viz., 
"Utilitarianism."      The   new  conception   has  been   only 
gradually  reached,  however ;  there  is  an  interesting  bridge 
between  the  old  egoistic  form  of  hedonism  and  the  new 
altruistic  or  "  utilitarian  "  version  of  it,  in  the  philosophy 
of  Paley.     To  this  "lawyer-like  mind"  it  seemed  that 
we  ought  to  seek  "  the  happiness  of  mankind,  in  obedience 
to  the  will  of  God,  and  for  the  sake  of  everlasting  happi- 
ness."    The  happiness  of  mankind,  he  holds,  is  the  "  sub- 
ject" or  content  of  morality,  but  "everlasting  happiness" 
tone's  own,  of  course— is  the  "  motive."    The  End,  there- 
fore, is  one's  own  individual  happiness,  and  the  happiness 
of  others  is  to  be  sought  merely  as  a  means  to  that  End. 


Such  a  theory  is,  it  is  obvious,  thoroughly  egoistic ;  it  is 
only  an  improved  version  of  the  egoism  of  Hobbes,  which 
formed*  the  starting-point  of  modern  ethical  reflection. 
It  is  to  Hume,  Bentham,  and  Mill  that  we  owe  the 
substitution  of  the  General  Happiness  for  that  of  the 
individual,  as  the  end  of  life.  According  to  each  of  these 
writers  the  true  standpoint  is  that  of  society,  not  that 
of  the  individual;  from  the  social  standpoint  alone  can 
we  estimate  aright  the  claims  either  of  our  own  happi- 
ness or  of  the  happiness  of  others.  MilFs  statement  is 
the  most  adequate  on  this  important  point. 

The  "  utilitarian  standard "  is  "  not  the  agent's  own 
greatest  happiness,  but  the  greatest  amount  of  happiness 
altogether."  The  End,  thus  conceived,  yields  the  true 
principle  of  the  distribution  of  happiness.  "As  between 
his  own  happiness  and  that  of  others,  utilitarianism 
requires  him  to  be  as  strictly  impartial  as  a  disinterested 
and  benevolent  spectator.  In  the  golden  rule  of  Jesus  of 
Xazareth,  we  read  the  complete  spirit  of  the  ethics  of 
utility.  To  do  as  one  would  be  done  by,  and  to  love  one's 
neighbour  as  oneself,  constitute  the  ideal  perfection  of 
utilitarian  morality."  Bentham  had  already  enunciated 
this  principle  in  the  formula:  "Each  to  count  for  one, 
and  no  one  for  more  than  one."  But  a  new  question  is 
thus  raised  for  the  hedonist — viz.,  how  to  reconcile  the 
happiness  of  all  with  the  happiness  of  each,  or  altruism 
with  egoism.  "  Why  am  I  bound  to  promote  the  general 
happiness  ?  If  my  own  happiness  Kes  in  something  else, 
why  may  I  not  give  that  the  preference  ? "  Mill  answers 
that  there  are  two  kinds  of  sanction  for  altruistic  conduct, 
external  and  internal.     Both  had  been  recognised  by  his 

G 


»'■ 


(3)  Quali- 
tative V, 
Quanti- 
tative. 


98 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


predecessors.     Bentham  mentions  four  sanctions,  all  "  ex- 
ternal"— viz.,  the   physical,  the   political,  the   moral  or 
popular,  and  the  religious.     All  four  are  forces  brought 
to   bear   upon    the   individual    from   without,    and   their 
common   object   is   to   produce   an   identity,  or  at  least 
community,  of  interest  between  the  individual  and  society, 
in  such  wise  that  he  shall  "  find  his  account "  in  living 
conformably  to  the  claims  of  the  general  happiness.     But 
such   external   sanctions,    alone,   would    provide   only   a 
secondary  and  indirect  vindication  for  altruistic  conduct. 
The  individual  whose   life  was    governed   by  such    con- 
straints would  still  be,  in  character   and  inner  motive, 
if  not  in  outward  act,  an  egoist ;  his  end  would  still  be 
egoistic,  though  it  was  accomplished  by  altruistic  means. 
To  the  external  sanctions  must,  therefore,  be  added  the 
internal  sanction  which  Hume  and  Mill  alike  describe  as 
a  "feeling  for  the  happiness  of  mankind,"  a  "basis  of 
powerful  natural  sentiment "  for  "  utilitarian  morality,"  a 
feeling  of  "  regard  to  the  pleasures  and  pains  of  others," 
which,  if  not  "  innate  "  or  fully  developed  from  the  first, 
is  none  the  less  "  natural."     "  This  firm  foundation  is  that 
of  the  social  feelings  of  mankind ;    the  desire  to  be  in 
unity  with  our  fellow-creatures,  which  is  already  a  power- 
ful principle  in  human  nature,  and  happily  one  of  those 
which  tend   to  become   stronger,  even   without   express 
inculcation,  from  the  influences  of  advancing  civilisation." 
(3)  The  third  characteristic  feature  of  modern  Hedonism, 
as  contrasted  with  ancient,  is  the  new  interpretation  which 
it  offers  of  the  gradation  of  pleasures.     It  is  Mill's  chief 
innovation  that  he  introduces  a  distinction  of  quality,  in 
addition  to  the  old  distinction  of  quantity.    The  End  thus 


HEDONISM. 


99 


receives,  in  addition  to  its  new  extension,  a  new  refine- 
ment.     The  Epicureans  had  emphasised  the  distinction 
between  the  pleasures  of  the  body  and  those  of  the  mind, 
and  had  unhesitatingly  awarded  the   superiority  to  the 
latter,  on  the  ground  of  their  greater  durabiHty  and  their 
comparative  freedom  from  painful  consequences  ;  but  they 
had  not  maintained   the  intrinsic  preferableness  of  the 
mental  pleasures.     To  Paley  and  Bentham,  as  well  as  to 
the  Epicureans,  all  pleasures  are  still  essentially,  or  in 
kind,  the    same.     "I  hold,"  says  Paley,    '^that  pleasures 
differ  in  nothing,  but  in  continuance  and  intensity."    Ben- 
tham holds  that,  besides  intensity  and  duration,the  elements 
of  "certainty,"   "propinquity,"  "fecundity"  (the   likeli- 
hood of  their   being  followed  by   other   pleasures),   and 
"purity"   (the  unlikelihood  of  their   being   followed  by 
pain),  must  enter  as  elements  into  the  "hedonistic  cal- 
culus."     Such  were  the  interpretations  of  the  distinction 
prior  to  Mill ;  the  distinction  was  emphasised,  but  it  was 
explained  in  the  end  as  a  distinction  of  quantity,  not  of 
quality.     Mill  holds  that  the  distinction  of  quality  is  in- 
dependent of  that  of  quantity,  and  that  the  qualitative 
distinction  is  as  real  and  legitimate  as  the  quantitative. 
"  There  is  no  known  Epicurean  theory  of  life  which  does 
not  assign  to  the  pleasures  of  the  intellect,  of  the  feelincrs 
and  imagination,  and  of  the  moral  sentiments,  a  much 
higher  value  as  pleasures  than  to  those  of  mere  sensation. 
It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  utilitarian  writers  in 
general  have  placed  the  superiority  of  mental  over  bodily 
pleasures  chiefly  in  the  greater  permanence,  safety,  costli- 
ness, &c.,  of  the  former — that  is,  in  their  circumstantial 
advantages  rather  than  in  their  intrinsic  nature.     And  on 


100 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


all  these  points  utilitarians  have  fully  proved  their  case ; 
but  they  might  have  taken  the  other,  and,  as  it  may  be 
called,  higher  ground,  with  entire  consistency.  It  is  quite 
compatible  with  the  principle  of  utility  to  recognise  the 
fact  that  some  hiTids  of  pleasure  are  more  desirable  and 
more  valuable  than  others.  It  would  be  absurd  that 
while,  in  estimating  all  other  things,  quality  is  considered 
as  well  as  quantity,  the  estimation  of  pleasure  should  be 
supposed  to  depend  on  quantity  alone."  As  to  the  criterion 
of  quality  in  pleasures,  or  "  what  makes  one  pleasure  more 
valuable  than  aiiother,  merely  as  a  pleasure,  except  its 
being  greater  in  amount,  there  is  but  one  possible  answer." 
That  answer  is  the  one  which  Plato  gave  Ions:  aofo,  the 
answer  of  the  widest  and  most  competent  experience.  "  Of 
two  pleasures,  if  there  be  one  to  which  all  or  almost  all 
who  have  experience  of  both,  give  a  decided  preference, 
irrespective  of  any  feeling  of  moral  obligation  to  prefer  it, 
that  is  the  more  desirable  pleasure.  If  one  of  the  two  is, 
by  those  who  are  competently  acquainted  with  both,  placed 
so  far  above  the  other  that  they  prefer  it,  even  though 
knowing  it  to  be  attended  with  a  greater  amount  of  dis- 
content, and  would  not  resign  it  for  any  amount  of  the 
other  pleasure  which  their  nature  is  capable  of,  we  are 
justified  in  ascribing  to  the  preferred  enjoyment  a  superior- 
ity in  quality,  so  far  outweighing  quantity  as  to  render  it, 
in  comparison,  of  small  account.  Now  it  is  an  unquestion- 
able fact  that  those  who  are  equally  acquainted  with,  and 
equally  capable  of  appreciating  and  enjoying  both,  do  give 
a  most  marked  preference  to  the  manner  of  existence 
which  employs  their  higher  faculties.  Few  human 
creatures  would  consent  to  be  changed  into  any  of  the 


HEDONISM. 


101 


lower  animals  for  a  promise  of  the  fullest  allowance  of  a 
beast's  pleasures ;  no  intelligent  human  being  would  con- 
sent to  be  a  fool,  no  instructed  person  would  be  an  ignor- 
amus, no  person  of  feeling  and  conscience  would  be  selfish 
and  base,  even  though  they  should  be  persuaded  that  the 
fool,  or  the  dunce,  or  the  rascal  is  better  satisfied  with  his 
lot  than  they  are  with  theirs.  They  would  not  resign 
what  they  possess  more  than  he,  for  the  most  complete 
satisfaction  of  all  the  desires  which  they  have  in  common 
with  him.  .  .  .  We  may  give  what  explanation  we  please 
of  this  unwillingness,  .  .  .  but  its  most  appropriate  ap- 
pellation is  a  sense  of  dignity,  which  all  human  beings 
possess  in  one  form  or  other,  and  in  some,  though  by  no 
means  in  exact,  proportion  to  their  higher  faculties,  and 
which  is  so  essential  a  part  of  the  happiness  of  those  in 
whom  it  is  strong,  that  nothing  which  conflicts  with  it 
could  be,  otherwise  than  momentarily,  an  object  of  desire 
to  them."  This  higher  nature,  with  its  higher  demand  of 
happiness,  carries  with  it  inevitably  a  certain  discontent. 
Yet  "  it  is  better  to  be  a  human  being  dissatisfied  than  a 
pig  satisfied ;  better  to  be  Socrates  dissatisfied  than  a  fool 
satisfied.  And  if  the  fool  or  the  pig  is  of  a  different  opinion, 
it  is  because  they  only  know  their  own  side  of  the  question. 
The  other  party  to  the  comparison  knows  both  sides." 

4.  Not  the  least  important  modern  modification  of  the  (c)  Evoi- 
hedonistic  theory  is   its   affiliation    to    an    evolutionary  utmteri- 
view  of   morality.      The  current   form   of   Hedonism  is  ^'"'°'' 
Evolutional  Utilitarianism.     The  reform  in  ethical  method 
which  the  evolutionary  moralists  seek  to  introduce  is,  in 
words,  the  same  as  Kant's  reform  of  metaphysics — viz.,  to 


102 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


103 


make  it  scientific.  Apply  the  principle  of  Evolution  to 
the  phenomena  of  moral  life,  as  it  has  already  been  ap- 
plied to  the  phenomena  of  physical  life,  and  the  former, 
equally  with  the  latter,  will  fall  into  order  and  system. 
Morality,  like  Nature,  has  evolved;  and  neither  can  be 
understood  except  in  the  light  of  its  evolution.  Nay,  the 
evolution  of  morality  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  general 
evolution  of  nature,  its  crown  and  climax  indeed,  but  of 
the  same  warp  and  woof.  In  the  successful  application 
of  his  theory  to  ©loral  life,  therefore,  the  Evolutionist  sees 
the  satisfaction  of  his  highest  ambition ;  for  it  is  here  that 
the  critical  point  is  reached  which  shall  decide  whether  or 
not  his  conception  is  potent  to  reduce  all  knowledge  to 
unity.  If  morality  offers  no  resistance  to  its  application, 
its  adequacy  is  once  for  all  completely  vindicated.  Thus 
we  are  offered  by  the  Evolutionists  what  Green  called  a 
"  natural  science  of  morals." 

According  to  Mr  Spencer,  Morality  is  ''  that  form  which 
universal  conduct  assumes  during  the  last  stages  of  its 
evolution."  Conduct  is  "  the  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends," 
and  in  the  growing  complexity  and  completeness  of  this 
adjustment  consists  its  evolution.  Things  and  actions  are 
-  good  or  bad  according  as  they  are  well  or  ill  adapted  to 
achieve  prescribed  ends,"  or  "according  as  the  adjust- 
ments of  acts  to  ends  are  or  are  not  efficient."  And, 
ultimately,  their  goodness  o'r  badness  is  determined  by 
the  measure  in  which  all  minor  ends  are  merged  in  the 
grand  end  of  self  and  race-preservation.  Thus  "  the  ideal 
goal  to  the  natural  evolution  of  conduct "  is  at  the  same 
time  "  the  ideal  standard  of  conduct  ethically  considered." 
The  universal  End  of  conduct,  therefore,  is  "life"— its 


preservation  and  development.  But  "  in  calling  good  the 
conduct  which  subserves  life,  and  bad  the  conduct  which 
hinders  or  destroys  it,  and  in  so  implying  that  life  is  a 
blessing  and  not  a  curse,  we  are  inevitably  asserting  that 
conduct  is  good  or  bad  according  as  its  total  effects  are 
pleasurable  or  painful." 

Looking  at  the  inner  side  of  conduct,  and  seeking  to 
trace  "  the  genesis  of  the  moral  consciousness,"  Mr  Spen- 
cer finds  its  "  essential  trait "  to  be  "  the  control  of  some 
feeling  or  feelings  by  some  other  feeling  or  feelings " ; 
and  "  the  general  truth  disclosed  by  the  study  of  evolving 
conduct,  sub-human  and  human,"  is  that,  "  for  the  better 
preservation  of  life,  the  primitive,  simple,  presentative  feel- 
ings must  be  controlled  by  the  later-evolved,  compound, 
and  representative  feelings."  Mr  Spencer  mentions  three 
controls  of  this  kind — the  political,  the  religious,  and  the 
social.  These  do  not,  however,  severally  or  together, 
"  constitute  the  moral  control,  but  are  only  preparatory 
to  it — are  controls  within  which  the  moral  control  evolves." 
"  The  restraints  properly  distinguished  as  moral  are  unlike 
those  restraints  out  of  which  they  evolve,  and  with  which 
they  are  long  confounded,  in  this — they  refer  not  to  the 
extrinsic  effects  of  actions,  but  to  their  intrinsic  effects. 
The  truly  moral  deterrent  is  .  .  .  constituted  ...  by  a 
representation  of  the  necessary  natural  results." 

Thus  arises  "  the  feeling  of  moral  obligation,"  "  the  sen- 
timent of  duty."  "  It  is  an  abstract  sentiment  generated 
in  a  manner  analogous  to  that  in  which  abstract  ideas  are 
generated."  On  reflection,  we  observe  that  the  common 
characteristic  of  the  feelings  which  prompt  to  "good" 
conduct  is  that  "they  are  all  complex,  re-representative 


104 


THE   MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


105 


[;  > 


feelings,  occupied  with  the  future  rather  than  the  pres- 
ent.    The  idea  of  authoritativeness  has,  therefore,  come 
to  be  connected  with  feelings  having  these  traits."     There 
is,  however,  another  element  in  the  "  abstract  conscious- 
ness of  duty  "—viz.,  "  the  element  of  coerciveness."     This 
Mr  Spencer  derives  from  the  various  forms  of  pre-moral 
restraint  just  mentioned.     But,  since  the  constant  ten- 
dency of  conduct  is  to  free  itself  from  these  restraints, 
and  to  become  self-dependent  and  truly  "moral,"  "the 
sense  of  duty  or^  moral   obligation  [i.e.,  as  coercive]   is 
transitory,   and   will   diminish   as    fast    as    moralisation 
increases.  .  .  .  While   at   first   the   motive    contains    an 
element   of   coercion,   at  last   this    element   of    coercion 
dies  out,  and  the  act  is  performed  without  any  conscious- 
ness of  being  obliged  to  perform  it ; "  and  thus  "  the  doing 
of  work,  originally  under  the  consciousness  that  it  ought 
to  be  done,  may  eventually  cease  to  have  any  such  accom- 
panying consciousness  "  and  the  right  action  will  be  done 
"  with  a  simple  feeling  of  satisfaction  in  doing  it."     Since 
the  consciousness  of  obligation  arises  from  the  incomplete 
adaptation  of  the  individual  to  the  social  conditions  of 
his  life,  "with  complete  adaptation  to  the  social  state, 
that  element  in  the  moral   consciousness  which  is  ex- 
pressed   by   the   word   obligation   will    disappear.      The 
higher  actions  required  for  the  harmonious  carrying  on 
of  life  will  be  as  much  matters  of  course  as  are  those 
lower  actions  which  the  simple  desires  prompt.     In  their 
proper  times  and  places  and  proportions,  the  moral  sen- 
timents will  guide  men  just  as  spontaneously  and  ade- 
quately as  now  do  the  sensations."^ 

1  'Data  of  Ethics,'  127-129. 


For  the  conflict  between  the  interests  of  society  and 
those  of  the  individual,  which  is  the  source  of  the  feeling 
of  Obligation  as  coercive,  is  not  absolute  and  permanent. 
A  "conciliation"  of  these  interests  is  possible.  Egoism 
and  Altruism  both  have  their  rights.  When  we  study  the 
history  of  evolving  life,  we  find  that  "  self-sacrifice  is  no 
less  primordial  than  self-preservation,"  and  that,  through- 
out, "altruism  has  been  evolving  simultaneously  with 
egoism."  "From  the  dawn  of  life  egoism  has  been  de- 
pendent upon  altruism,  as  altruism  has  been  dependent 
upon  egoism ;  and  in  the  course  of  evolution  the  recip- 
rocal services  of  the  two  have  been  increasing."  Thus 
"pure  egoism  and  pure  altruism  are  both  illegitimate;" 
and  "  in  the  progressing  ideas  and  usages  of  mankind  " 
a  "  compromise  between  egoism  and  altruism  has  been 
slowly  establishing  itself."  Nay,  a  "  concihation  has  been, 
and  is,  taking  place  between  the  interests  of  each  citizen 
and  the  interests  of  citizens  at  large;  tending  ever  to- 
wards a  state  in  which  the  two  become  merged  in  one, 
and  in  which  the  feelings  answering  to  them  respectively 
fall  into  complete  concord."  Thus  "  altruism  of  a  social 
kind  .  .  .  may  be  expected  to  attain  a  level  at  which  it 
will  be  like  parental  altruism  in  spontaneity — a  level 
such  that  ministration  to  others'  happiness  will  become 
a  daily  need."  This  consummation  will  be  brought  about 
by  the  same  agency  which  has  effected  the  present  partial 
conciliation — viz.,  sympathy,  "  which  must  advance  as  fast 
as  conditions  permit."  During  the  earlier  stages  of  the 
evolution  sympathy  is  largely  painful,  on  account  of  the 
existence  of  "  much  non- adaptation  and  much  consequent 
unhappiness."     "  Gradually,  then,  and  only  gradually,  as 


106 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


107 


these  various  causes  of  unhappiness  become  less,  can  sym- 
pathy become  greater.  ...  But  as  the  moulding  and  re- 
moulding of  man  and  society  into  mutual  fitness  pro- 
gresses, and  as  the  pains  caused  by  unfitness  decrease, 
sympathy  can  increase  in  presence  of  the  pleasures  that 
come  from  fitness.  The  two  changes  are,  indeed,  so  related 
that  each  furthers  the  other."  And  the  goal  of  evolution 
can  only  be  perfect  identity  of  interests,  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  that  identity. 

One  favourite  conception  of  the  Evolutionary  school  is 
missed  in  Mr  Spencer's  statement  of  the  theory,  that  of  the 
"  Social  Organism."  Mr  Leslie  Stephen  has  used  this  idea 
with  special  skill  in  his  '  Science  of  Ethics.'  "  Scientific  " 
Utilitarianism,  he  insists,  must  rest  upon  a  deeper  view 
of  society  and  of  its  relation  to  the  individual.  The  old 
Utilitarianism  conceived  society  as  a  mere  "  aggregate  "  of 
individuals.  The  utilitarian  was  still  an  "  individualist "  ; 
though  he  spoke  of  "  the  greatest  number  "  of  individuals, 
the  individual  was  still  his  unit.  Now,  according  to  Mr 
Stephen,  the  true  unit  is  not  the  individual,  but  society, 
which  is  not  a  mere  "  aggregate  "  of  individuals,  but  an 


organism," 


of  which  the  individual  is  a  member.  "  So- 
ciety  may  be  regarded  as  an  organism,  implying  ...  a 
social  tissue,  modified  in  various  ways  so  as  to  form  the 
organs  adapted  to  various  specific  purposes."  Further, 
the  social  organism  and  the  underlying  social  tissue  are  to 
be  regarded  as  evolving.  The  social  tissue  is  being  gradu- 
ally  modified  so  as  to  form  organs  ever  more  perfectly 
adapted  to  fulfil  the  various  functions  of  the  organism  as 
a  whole ;  and  the  goal  of  the  movement  is  the  evolution  of 
the  social  "  type  "—that  is,  of  that  form  of  society  which 


represents  "  maximum  efficiency  "  of  the  given  means  to 
the  given  end  of  social  life.  In  short,  we  may  say 
that  the  problem  which  is  receiving  its  gradual  solution 
in  the  evolution  of  society  is  the  production  of  a  "  social 
tissue,"  or  fundamental  structure,  the  most  "vitally 
efficient." 

In  describing  the  ethical  End.  therefore,  we  must  substi- 
tute for  "  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  " 
of  individuals,  the  "health"  of  the  social  organism,  or, 
still  more  accurately,  of  the  social  tissue.  The  true  "  util- 
ity "  is  not  the  external  utility  of  consequences.  Life  is 
not  "  a  series  of  detached  acts,  in  each  of  which  a  man  can 
calculate  the  sum  of  happiness  or  misery  attainable  by 
different  courses."  It  is  an  organic  growth ;  and  the  re- 
sults of  any  given  action  are  fully  appreciated,  only  when 
the  action  is  regarded,  not  as  affecting  its  temporary 
"  state,"  but  as  entering  into  and  modifying  the  very  sub- 
stance of  its  fundamental  structure.  The  "  scientific  cri- 
terion," therefore,  is  not  Happiness,  but  Health.  "We 
obtain  unity  of  principle  when  we  consider,  not  the  vari- 
ous external  relations,  but  the  internal  condition  of  the 
organism.  .  .  .  We  only  get  a  tenable  and  simple  law 
when  we  start  from  the  structure,  which  is  itself  a  unit." 
Nor  are  the  two  criteria — health  and  happiness — "  really 
divergent ;  on  the  contrary,  they  necessarily  tend  to  coin- 
cide." The  general  correlation  of  the  painful  and  the 
pernicious,  the  pleasurable  and  the  beneficial,  is  obvious. 
"  '  The  useful,'  in  the  sense  of  pleasure-giving,  must  ap- 
proximately coincide  with  the  *  useful '  in  the  sense  of  life- 
preserving.  .  .  .  We  must  suppose  that  pain  and  pleasure 
are  the  correlatives  of  certain  states  which  may  be  roughly 


108 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


109 


II 


i 


!  I 

I 


regarded  as  the  smooth  and  the  distracted  workmg  of  the 
physical  machinery,  and  that,  given  those  states,  the  sen- 
sations must  always  be  present."  And  in  the  evolution  of 
society  we  can  trace  the  gradual  approximation  to  coin- 
cidence of  these  two  senses  of  "  utility." 

Objectively  considered,  then,  moral  laws  may  be  iden- 
tified with  the  conditions  of  social  vitality,  and  morality 
may  be  called  "  the  sum  of  the  preservative  instincts  of 
a  society."     That  these  laws  should  be  perceived  with 
increasing  clearness  as  the  evolution  proceeds,  is  a  cor- 
ollary of  the  theory  of  Evolution ;  as  the  social  type  is 
gradually  elaborated,  the  conditions  of  its  realisation  will 
be   more   clearly   perceived.      Thus   we    reach   the   true 
interpretation  of  the  subjective  side  of  morality.      Cor- 
responding to   social   welfare   or   health  —  the   objective 
end — there   is,   in   the  member  of  society,  a   social  in- 
stinct or  sympathy  with  that  welfare   or   health.     The 
old   opposition    between    the    individual   and   society   is 
fundamentally  erroneous,  depending  as  it  does  upon  the 
inadequate  mechanical  conception  of  society  already  re- 
ferred to.     "  The  difference  between  the  sympathetic  and 
the  non-sympathetic  feelings  is  a  difference  in  their  law 
or  in  the  fundamental  axiom  which  they  embody."     "  The 
sympathetic  being  becomes,  in  virtue  of  his  sympathies, 
a  constituent  part  of  a  larger  organisation.     He  is  no 
more  intelligible  by  himself  alone  than  the  limb  is  in 
all  its   properties   intelligible   without   reference   to   the 
body."     Just  as  "  we  can   only  obtain  the   law  of  the 
action  of  the  several  limbs"  when  we  take  the  whole 
body  into  account,  so  with  the  feelings  of  "the  being 
who  has  become  part  of  the  social  organism.  .  .  .  Though 


feelings  of  the  individual,  their  law  can  only  be  deter- 
mined by  reference  to  the  general  social  conditions."  As 
a  member  of  society,  and  not  a  mere  individual,  man 
cannot  but  be  sympathetic.  The  growth  of  society  im- 
plies, as  its  correlate,  "  the  growth  of  a  certain  body  of 
sentiment "  in  its  members ;  and,  in  accordance  with  the 
law  of  Natural  Selection,  this  instinct,  as  pre-eminently 
useful  to  the  social  organism,  w^ill  be  developed — at  once 
extended  and  enlightened.  "Every  extension  of  reason- 
ing power  implies  a  wider  and  closer  identification  of  self 
with  others,  and  therefore  a  greater  tendencv  to  merge 

'  o  I/O 

the  prudential  in  the  social  axiom  as  a  first  principle 
of  conduct." 

Thus  what  is  generated  in  the  course  of  Evolution  is 
not  merely  a  type  of  conduct,  but  a  "  type  of  character  " ; 
not  merely  altruistic  conduct,  but  "the  elaboration  and 
regulation  of  the  sympathetic  character  which  takes  place 
through  the  social  factor."  We  can  trace  the  gradual 
process  from  the  external  to  the  internal  form  of  mor- 
ality, from  the  law  "  Do  this  "  to  the  law  "  Be  this."  We 
see  how  approval  of  a  certain  type  of  conduct  develops 
into  "approval  of  a  certain  type  of  character,  the  exist- 
ence of  which  fits  the  individual  for  membership  of  a 
thoroughly  efficient  and  healthy  social  tissue."  This,  it 
is  insisted,  is  the  true  account  of  Conscience.  *'  Moral 
approval  is  the  name  of  the  sentiment  developed  through 
the  social  medium,  which  modifies  a  man's  character  in 
such  a  way  as  to  fit  him  to  be  an  efficient  member  of 
the  social  tissue.  It  is  the  spiritual  pressure  which 
generates  and  maintains  morality,"  the  representative  and 
spokesman  of  morality  in  the  individual  consciousness. 


I    I 


I      i 

1 


110 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


Ill 


(d)  Ratiou- 
al  Utili- 
tarianism. 


il 


"The  conscience  is  the  utterance  of  the  public  spirit  of 
the  race,  ordering  us  to  obey  the  primary  conditions  of 
its  welfare."  ^ 

5.  Hedonism  is  the  Ethics  of  Sensibility,  and  we  have 
traced  how  thinker  after  thinker  of  this  school,  each  avail- 
ing himself  of  the  new  insight  unavailable  to  his  prede- 
cessors, has  striven  to  solve  the  ethical  problem  in  terms 
of  feeling,  to  interpret  the  Good,  whether  our  own  or  that 
of  others,  as,  in  the  last  analysis,  a  sentient  rather  than 
a  rational  or  intellectual  Good.     In  particular,  we  have 
watched  the  gradual  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  Good  of  the  individual  to  the  Good  of  others, 
the  problem   of  Egoism  and  Altruism.     We   have   seen 
Mill  reconciling  these  two  Goods,  or  rather  resolving  them 
into  one,  through  our  "  feeling  of  unity  with  our  fellow- 
men,"  a  sympathy  which  identifies  their  good  with   our 
own,  and  which  all  the  influences  of  advancing  civilisation 
and  moral  education  are  tending  to  foster  and  develop. 
We  have  seen  the  Evolutionists  relying  upon  the   same 
agency  of  sympathetic  feeling  for  the  accomplishment  of 
the  desired  reconciliation,  and  invoking  the  law  of  Evolu- 
tion and  the  conception  of  the  Social  Organism  in  behalf  of 
their  prediction  of  an  ultimate  harmony  of  the  interests  of 
all  with  the  interests  of  each.     Now,  Professor  Sidgwick, 
coming  to  the  solution  of  the  problem  as  it  is  thus  handed 
to  him,  or  rather  as  it  is  handed  to  him  by  Mill  (for  he  does 
not  take  any  apparent  interest  in  the  Evolutionary  solu- 
tion of  it),  concludes  that,  as  a  problem  of  mere  feeling,  it 

1  The  above  sketch  of  Evolutional  Utilitarianism  is  taken  from  an  article 
by  the  author  on  the  "  Evolution  of  Morality  "  ('  Mind,'  xiv.  27). 


is  insoluble,  and  that  the  only  possible  solution  of  it  is  a 
rational  solution.  His  endeavour,  therefore,  is  to  establish 
the  rationality  of  Utilitarianism,  and  thus  to  provide  its 
needed  "  proof."  That  proof  is  not,  as  Mill  held,  psycholo- 
gical, but  logical ;  and  he  sets  himself,  as  he  says,  to  dis- 
cover "  the  rational  basis  that  I  had  long  perceived  to  be 
wanting  to  the  Utilitarianism  of  Bentham  [and  of  Mill] 
regarded  as  an  ethical  doctrine."  The  resulting  theory  he 
calls  "  Eational  Utilitarianism." 

Agreeing  with  the  hedonistic  interpretation  of  the  End 
as  a  sentient  Good  or  a  Good  of  feelinij:,  Mr  Sidijwick 
finds  it  necessary  to  appeal  to  reason  for  the  regidative 
principles — the  principles  of  the  distribution  of  this  Good. 
(1)  Without  passing  beyond  the  circle  of  the  individual 
life,  we  find  it  necessary  to  employ  a  rational  principle 
in  the  choice  of  sentient  satisfaction.  The  bridge  on 
which  we  pass  from  pure  to  modified  Hedonism,  from 
Cyrenaicism  to  Epicureanism,  from  the  irresponsible  en- 
joyment of  the  moment  to  a  well-planned  and  successful 
life  of  pleasure,  from  pleasure  to  Happiness,  is  a  bridge  of 
reason,  not  of  feeling.  To  feeling,  the  present  moment's 
claim  to  satisfaction  is  paramount — its  claim  is  felt  more 
imperatively  than  that  of  any  other ;  it  is  to  the  eye  of 
thought  alone  that  the  true  perspective  of  the  moments 
and  of  their  capacities  of  pleasure  is  revealed.  When  we 
reflect  or  think,  we  see  that  the  Good  is  not  a  thing  of  the 
passing  moments,  but  of  the  total  life ;  reason  carries  us, 
as  feeling  never  could,  past  a  regard  for  our  "  momentary 
good  "  to  a  regard  for  our  "  good  on  the  whole."  Feeling 
needs  the  instruction  of  reason — our  self-love  has  to  be- 
come a  rational,  as  distinguished  from  a  merely  sentient 


^ } 


I 


I 


1" 


u 


I. 


112 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


a 


t( 


t 


love  of  self.  Keason  dictates  an  "  impartial  concern  for 
all  parts  of  our  conscious  life,"  an  equal  regard  for  the 
rights  of  all  the  moments,  the  future  as  well  as  the 
present,  the  remote  as  well  as  the  near;  teaches  short- 
sighted Veeling,  with  its  eye  filled  with  the  present,  that 
^Hereafter  is  to  be  regarded  as  much  as  JSToiv"  and  that 
a  smaller  present  good  is  not  to  be  preferred  to  a  greater 
future  good."  When  the  Good  is  enjoyed,  now  or  then, 
to-morrow  or  next  year,  is,  or  may  be,  to  Eeason  a  matter 
of  indifference,  while  to  Feeling  it  is  almost  everything ;  it 
is  for  Reason  to  educate  Feeling,  until  Feeling  shares  her 
own  perspective.  This  rational  principle  which  guides  us 
in  the  distribution  of  our  own  Good  is  Prudence. 

But  the  path  of  Prudence  is  not  itself  alone  the  path  of 
Virtue.     Even  one's  own  "  good  on  the  whole  "  is  not  ipso 
facto  the  same  as  the  general   good.     Whence  shall  we 
derive  the  principle  of  the  distribution  of  Good  when  the 
Good  is  the  Good  of  all,  and  not  merely  that  of  the  in- 
dividual.     How  construct  the  bridge  that  will  span  the 
interval  between  our  own  good  and  that  of  others,  and 
correlate   altruistic  with   egoistic    conduct?      For,   once 
more,  mere  Feeling  does  not  constitute  the  bridge  between 
Egoism   and  Altruism.      The  dualism  of   Prudence  and 
Virtue,  regard  for  our  own  good  and  regard  for  the  good  of 
others  or  the  general  good,  remains  for  Feeling  irresolvable. 
Society  never  quite  annexes  the  individual ;  his  good  and 
its  never  absolutely  coincide  in  the  sphere  of  sensibility. 
But  reason  solves  the  problem  which  is  for  feeling  in- 
soluble.    The  true  proof  of  Utilitarianism  or  Altruistic 
Hedonism  is  not  psychological,  but  logical.     When  "  the 
egoist  offers  the  proposition  that  his  happiness  or  pleasure 


HEDONISM. 


113 


is  good,  not  only  for  him,  but  absolutely,  he  gives  the 
ground  needed  for  such  a  proof.  For  we  can  then  point 
out  to  him  that  his  happiness  cannot  be  a  more  important 
part  of  Good,  taken  universally,  than  the  equal  happiness 
of  any  other  person.  And  thus,  starting  with  his  own 
principle,  he  must  accept  the  wider  notion  of  universal 
happiness  or  pleasure,  as  representing  the  real  end  of 
Eeason,  the  absolutely  Good  or  Desirable."  To  feeling  it 
makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world,  whether  it  is  my 
own  happiness  or  some  one  else's  that  is  in  question ;  to 
reason  this  distinction  also  is,  like  the  distinction  of  time, 
a  matter  of  indifference.  As,  to  the  eye  of  reason,  there  is 
no  distinction  between  the  near  and  the  remote,  but  every 
moment  of  the  individual  life  has  its  equal  right  to  satis- 
faction, so  is  there  no  distinction  between  meum  and  tmtm, 
but  eacli  individual,  as  equally  a  sentient  being,  has  an 
equal  right  to  consideration.  "  Here  again,  just  as  in  the 
former  case,  by  considering  the  relation  of  the  integrant 
parts  to  the  whole  and  to  each  other,  we  may  obtain  the 
self-evident  principle  that  the  good  of  any  individual  is 
of  no  more  importance,  as  a  part  of  universal  good,  than 
the  good  of  any  other ;  unless,  that  is,  there  are  special 
grounds  for  believing  that  more  good  is  likely  to  be 
realised  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other.  And  as 
rational  beings,  we  are  manifestly  bound  to  aim  at  good 
generally,  not  merely  at  this  or  that  part  of  it."  That 
"  impartiality  "  which  Bentham  and  Mill  declared  essential 
to  utilitarian  morality,  in  which  "  each  is  to  count  for  one, 
and  no  one  for  more  than  one,"  is  the  impartiality  of 
reason,  to  which  mere  feeling  could  never  attain.  This 
rational  principle,  which  alone  can  guide  us  in  the  dis- 


i  I 


114 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


115 


tribution  of  happiness  between  ourselves  and  others,  is 
"  the  abstract  principle  of  the  duty  of  Benevolence."  To 
Prudence  must  be  added  Benevolence. 

But,  in  order  to  a  perfectly  rational  distribution  of 
Happiness,  whether  among  the  competing  moments  of 
the  individual  life  or  among  competing  individuals,  yet 
a  third  principle  of  reason  must  be  invoked.  Whether 
we  are  considering  the  sum-total  of  our  own  happiness  or 
of  the  general  happiness,  we  find  that  the  constituent 
parts  have  not  all»  an  equal  importance.  Some  moments 
in  the  individual  life  arc  more  important  than  others, 
because  they  have  a  larger  or  a  peculiar  capacity  for 
pleasure ;  and  some  individuals  are  more  important  than 
others,  because  they  too  have  a  larger  or  a  peculiar 
capacity  for  pleasure.  Neither  in  the  individual  nor  in 
the  social  sphere  is  there  a  dead  level  of  absolute  equality  ; 
there  are  rational  grounds  for  recognising  inequality  in 
both.  Accordingly,  if  the  maximum  of  happiness  is  to 
be  realised,  the  strict  literal  "  impartiality "  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  Prudence  and  Benevolence  must  be  enlightened 
by  the  better  insight  of  a  higher  Justice  which,  with  its 
yet  stricter  scrutiny  and  more  perfect  impartiality,  shall 
recognise  the  true  claim  and  the  varying  importance  of 
each  moment  and  of  each  individual.  It  is,  indeed,  rather 
a  principle  of  Equity  than  of  Justice,  a  "  Lesbian  rule " 
which  adapts  itself  to  the  inequalities  and  variations  of  that 
living  experience  which  it  measures.  As  such,  it  is  the 
true  and  ultimate  economic  principle  of  Hedonism.  In- 
stead of  depressing  the  maximum  to  a  rigid  average,  by 
distributing  the  "  greatest  happiness  "  equally  among  the 
"  greatest  number  "  of  moments  or  of  individuals,  the  prin- 


ciple of  Justice  directs  us  to  aim  at  the  greatest  total 
happiness,  or  the  greatest  happiness  "on  the  whole," 
whether  in  our  own  experience  or  in  that  of  the  race. 

IT. — Critical  Estimate  of  Hedonism. 

6.  The  formal  merits  of  Hedonism  as  a  philosophical  («)  its  psy. 
theory  of  morals  are  of  the  highest  order.     It  is  a  bold  inade^''^^ 
and  skilfully  executed  effort  to  satisfy  the  philosophical  '^"^''^^• 
demand  for  unity.      It  offers  a  clear  and  definite   con- 
ception of  the  End  of   life,  a  principle  of   unity  under 
which   its   most   diverse   elements  are  capable  of   being 
brought,  and  under  which  they  receive  at  least  a  very 
plausible   interpretation.      It   acknowledges   the  growth 
and    change    which    have    characterised    the    course    of 
moral  theory  and  practice;  it  recognises  the  fact  that 
morality  is  an  evolution,  and  has  a  history ;  and  it  offers 
a  philosophy  of  this  history,  a  theory  of  this  evolution. 
Nor  does  it  fall  into  the  fallacy  of  reading  its  own  philo- 
sophical theory  into  the  ordinary  naive  moral  conscious- 
ness of  mankind.     The  dominating  tendency  of  the  entire 
ethical  movement,  it  insists,  is  utilitarian  and  hedonistic ; 
but  this  tendency  is  present  unconsciously  and  implicitly 
oftener  than  consciously  and  explicitly.     Until  we  reflect, 
we  may  not  realise  that  the  End  which  we  seek  in  all 
our  actions  is  pleasure ;  but  let  us  once  reflect,  and  we 
cannot  fail   to   detect  its  constant  presence  and   opera- 
tion.    And  when  we  follow  the  history  of  the  theory, 
from  its  ancient  beginnings  in  Cyrenaicism  to  its  classical 
development  in  Epicureanism,  and  from  the  Egoism  of 
Paley  to   the  Altruism  of  Bentham   and  Mill,  and  the 


116 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


Evolutionism  of  Spencer  and  his  school,  we  must  admire 
not  only  the  strenuous  perseverance  with  which  the  old 
formula  has  been  stretched  again  and  again  so  as  to  ac- 
commodate higher  and  hitherto  unconsidered  aspects  of  the 
ethical  problem,  but  also  the  skill  and  open-mindedness, 
the  sense  of  moral  reality,  the  vitality  of  thought,  which 
have  enabled  the  theory  to  adapt  itself  so  readily  and  so 
naturally  to  new  moral  and  intellectual  conditions. 

A  peculiar  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  an  unwarranted 
plausibility  has,  however,  accrued  to  the  theory  from  its 
appropriation  of  the   term  "Happiness"  to   express  its 
conception  of  the  ethical  end.     We  hear  the  theory  as 
often  called  "  Eudc^monism  "  as  "  Hedonism,"  the  "  Happi- 
ness-theory "  as  the  "  Pleasure-theory."     It  would  conduce 
to  clearness  of  thought  if  these  terms  were  kept  apart. 
For,  as  Aristotle  says,  we  are  all  agreed  in  describing  the 
End  as  Happiness  (evSaifJiovlal  but  we  differ  as  to  the 
definition  of  Happiness.     Pleasure  (^Bovrj)  is  one  among 
other  interpretations  of  Happiness,  and,  though  it  may  be 
the  most  usual,  its  justice  and  adequacy  must  be  con- 
sidered and  vindicated,  like  those  of  any  other  interpre- 
tation.      Happiness   is,  in    itself,  merely   equivalent  to 
"  Well-being  "  or  "  Welfare,"  and  the  nature  of  this  may 
be  described  in  other  terms,  as  well  as  in  those  of  Pleasure. 
Pleasure  is  cTSthetic  or  emotional  welfare,  welfare  of  Sen- 
sibility ;  but  there  is  also  intellectual  welfare,  and  that 
welfare'  of  the  Will  or  total  active  Self  which  is  rather 
well-doing  than  well-being  (e^  ?r}i;  Kal  e^  TrpdrreLv),     The 
Welfare  or  Happiness  may  be  that  of  the  sentient,  or  of 
the  intellectual,  or  of  the  total  (sentient  and  intellectual) 
or  active  Self.    No  doubt.  Pleasure,  or  the  Happiness  of 


HEDONISM. 


117 


the  sentient  self,  is  the  only  term  we  have  to  describe  the 
content  of  Happiness.  But  to  exclude  the  possibility  of 
any  other  interpretation  by  identifying  Happiness  and 
Pleasure  at  the  outset,  and  using  these  terms  interchange- 
ably throughout  the  discussion,  is,  it  seems  to  me,  to 
employ  a  "  question-begging  epithet."  The  thesis,  of  which 
Hedonism  ought  to  be  the  demonstration,  is  that  Happi- 
ness is  pleasure  or  the  "sum  of  pleasures."  Eealising 
this  to  be  the  true  state  of  the  argument,  we  may  now 
proceed  to  consider  the  legitimacy  and  adequacy  of  the 
hedonistic  interpretation  of  Happiness.  There  need  be 
the  less  hesitation  in  styling  the  theory  in  question  the 
"  pleasure-theory,"  rather  than,  more  vaguely  if  more 
plausibly,  the  "  happiness-theory,"  since  the  Epicureans 
of  old,  almost  as  eagerly  as  Mill  and  his  successors  in 
our  own  time,  have  maintained  the  claims  of  the  term 
"pleasure"  to  the  highest  emotional  connotation.  The 
real  question  at  issue,  let  us  understand,  is  the  legitimacy 
of  the  limitation  of  the  conception  of  Happiness  to  the 
sentient  or  emotional  sphere. 

Now,  the  fundamental  inadequacy  of  Hedonism,  already 
suggested  in  the  above  remarks,  is  a  psychological  one^ 
The  hedonistic  theory  of  life  is  based  upon  a  one-sided 
theory  of  human  nature.  Man  is  regarded  as,  fundamentally 
and  essentially,  a  sentient  being,  a  creature  of  sensibility ; 
and  therefore  the  end  of  his  life  is  conceived  in  terms  of 
sensibility,  or  as  sentient  satisfaction.  Now,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  sensibility  is  a  large  and  important  element  in 
human  life;  the  question  is,  whether  it  is  the  ultimate 
and  characteristic  element.  This  question  must,  I  think, 
be  answered  in  the  negative.    We  are  so  constituted  as  to 


118 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


119 


be  susceptible  to  pleasure  and  pain,  and  we  might  con- 
ceivably make  this  susceptibility  the  sole  guide  of  our  life. 
That  we  cannot  do  so  consistently  with  our  nature,  is 
because  we  are  also   so  constituted   as  to  regulate  our 
feelings  by  reference  not  only  to  one  another,  but  to  the 
rational  nature  which  belongs  to  our  humanity  and  differ- 
entiates us  from  the  animal  creation.     In  the  animal  life, 
pleasure  and  pain  are  the  "  sovereign  masters " ;  in  ours, 
they  are  subjected  to  the  higher  sovereignty  of  reason. 
"  If  pleasure  is  the  sovereign   good,  it  ought  to  satisfy 
absolutely  all  our  faculties ;  not  only  our  sensibility,  but 
also  our  intelligence  and  will."     Or  rather,  it  must  satisfy 
the  "nature"  which  these  faculties,  in  their  unity  and 
totality,  constitute,  and  must  satisfy  that  "  nature  "  in  its 
unity  and  totality.     But  pleasure,  or  sentient  satisfaction, 
is  not  a  category  adequate  to  the  interpretation  of  the  life 
of  such  a  being  as  man.     The  hedonistic  theory  of  life 
purchases  its  simplicity  and  lucidity  at  the  expense  of 
depth  and  comprehensiveness  of  view.     Its  formula  is  too 
simple.    Its  End  is  abstract  and  one-sided,  the  exponent  of 
the  life  of  feeling  merely;   the  true  End  must  be  the 
exponent  of  the  rational,  as  well  as  of  the  sentient  self. 
It  may  be  difficult  to  describe  such  an  End ;  but  the  dif- 
ficulty of  the  ethical  task  is  the  inevitable  result  of  the 
complexity  of   man's   nature.      The   very   clearness   and 
simplicity  of  Hedonism  is,  in  this  sense,  its  condemnation. 
It  is  doubtless  pleasing  to  the  logical  sense  to  see  the 
whole  of  our  complex  human  life  reduced  to  the  simple 
terms  of  Sensibility.      But  the  true  principle  of   unity 
must  take  fuller  account  of  the  complexity  of  the  problem ; 
insight  must  not  be  sacrificed  to  system — the  true  system 


will  be  the  result  of  the  deepest  insight.  Festina  lente  is 
the  watchword  in  Ethics  as  in  Metaphysics ;  the  true 
thinker,  in  either  sphere,  will  not  make  haste.  And  if 
Plato  was  right  when  he  said  that  the  good  life  is  a 
harmony  of  diverse  elements,  he  was  also  right  when 
he  said  that  the  key  to  this  harmony  is  to  be  found  rather 
in  Keason  than  in  Sensibility. 

To  a  psychologist  who,  like  Mill  and  Bain,  or  like  the 
ancient  Cyrenaics,  resolves  our  entire  experience  into 
feeling  or  sensibility,  such  a  criticism  would  not,  of 
course,  appeal.  He  would  disallow  the  distinction  between 
reason  and  sensibility,  and  maintain  that  the  former 
differs  from  the  latter  only  in  respect  of  its  greater  com- 
plexity, that  "  reason,"  so  -  called,  is  but  the  complex 
product  of  associated  feelings.  Hedonism  in  Ethics  is  the 
logical  correlate  of  Sensationalism  in  Psychology.  But, 
short  of  such  a  psychological  demonstration,  the  Aristo- 
telian argument  holds,  that  the  End  of  any  being  must 
be  in  accordance  with  its  peculiar  nature ;  and,  since 
sensibilitv  assimilates  man  to  the  animals,  and  reason 
differentiates  him  from  them,  his  true  well-being  must 
be  found  in  a  rationally  guided  life,  rather  than  in 
a  life  whose  sole  guide  and  "  sovereign  master "  is  . 
sensibility. 

7.  This  psychological  error  produces  in  its  turn  a  mis-  (5)  its  inad- 

.  equate  in- 

leadmg  and  inverted  view  of  Character,  an  estimate  of  terpreta- 
it  which  surely  misses  its  true  significance.     The  most  character, 
obvious  defect  of  the  theory  is  its  externalism.     Its  point 
of  view  is  that  of  consequences  and  results,  and  only  in- 
directly that  of  motives  and  intentions ;  conduct  alone  is 


120 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


of   direct   and   primary   importance,   the   significance   of 
character  is  indirect  and  secondary.     The  attainment  of 
a  certain  type  of  character,  or  of  a  certain  bent  of  will,  is, 
indeed,  of  the  highest  importance,  but  only  because  it  is 
the  surest  guarantee  for  a  certain  type  of  activity.     The 
latter  is  desirable  in  itself,  and  as  an  end ;  the  former  is 
desirable  only  as  the  best  means  towards  the  attainment 
of  this  end.     Character,  in  other  words,  is  instrumental ; 
the  "  good-will  "»is  a  means  to  an  end,  not  an  end-in- 
itself ;  will,  like  reason,  is  subordinated  to  feeling.     The 
whole  estimate  of  motives,  as  compared  with  actual  con- 
sequences, in   the  hedonistic  school,  implies  this  view; 
but  we  have  the  explicit  statement  of  Mill  himself  as  to 
the  real  importance  of  the  good  will.     "  It  is  because  of 
the  importance  to  others  of  being  able  to  rely  absolutely 
on  our  feelings  and  conduct,  and  to  oneself  of  being  able 
to  rely  on  one's  own,  that  the  will  to  do  right  ought  to 
be  cultivated  into  this  habitual  independence.     In  other 
words,  this  state  of  the  will  is  a  means  to  good,  not  in- 
trinsically a  good."  1     Which  is  to  say  that  the  state  of 
feeling,  or  the  production  of  pleasure,  is  the  end,  "the 
only  thing  always  and  altogether  good  " ;  while  the  char- 
acter of  the  will  is  only  a  means  to  this  end.     Professor 
Gizycki  forms  precisely  the  same  estimate  of  the  good 
will:   "Virtue  is  the  highest  excellence  of  man.     It  is 
not  an  excellence  of  the  body,  but  of  the  mind ;  and  not 
of  the  understanding,  but  of  the  will.     Virtue,  therefore, 
is  excellence  of  will,  or,  in  short,  a  good  will.     Why  is 
it  the  highest  excellence?      Because   nothing   so  much 
accords  with  the  ultimate  standard  of  all  values.     The 


1  t 


Utilitarianism,'  ch.  iv. 


HEDONISM. 


121 


character  of  man  is  the  principal  source  of  the  happiness, 
as  well  as  of  the  misery,  of  mankind.  Certainly  also 
health,  strength,  and  intelligence  are  essential  conditions 
of  human  welfare ;  but  the  good-will  is  still  more  essen- 
tial, for  only  it  guarantees  a  benevolent  direction  of  the 
others."  ^  The  good  man,  then,  according  to  the  hedon- 
istic estimate,  is  simply  a  reliable  instrument,  warranted 
not  to  go  wrong,  but  to  continue  steadily  producing  the 
greatest  amount  of  happiness  possible  in  the  circum- 
stances, whether  for  himself  or  for  others. 

Now,  this  interpretation  of  character,  it  seems  to  me, 
falsifies  the  healthy  moral  consciousness  of  mankind,  by 
simply  reversing  its  estimate.  That  estimate  is  that 
character,  the  attainment  of  a  certain  type  of  personality 
or  bent  of  will,  is  not  a  means  but  an  end-in-itself ;  that 
this,  and  not  the  production  of  a  certain  state  of  feeling, 
is  the  only  thing  which  is  always  and  altogether  good, 
and  itself  "the  ultimate  standard  of  all  values."  And 
why  ?  Because  character  is  the  expression  and  exponent  of 
the  total  personality.  Neither  the  emotional  nor  the  in- 
tellectual state,  but  that  state  of  Will  which  includes  them 
both,  is  the  ultimate  and  absolute  Good,  the  chief  End  of 
man.  It  is  true  that  this  form  of  heing  is  always  at  the 
same  time  a  form  of  doing,  that  character  and  conduct  are 
inseparable,  that  eft?  expresses  itself  in  ivepyeLa.  But  the 
character  is  not  there  for  the  sake  of  the  conduct,  the 
being  for  the  sake  of  the  doing.  That  would  still  be  an 
external  view,  and  would  make  character  merely  instru- 
mental. This  is  true  even  of  Mr  Stephen's  view  that 
moral  progress  is  always  from  the  form  "  Bo  this  "  to  the 

1  'Moral  Philosophy,'  112  (Eng.  tr.) 


122 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


123 


form  "  Be  this."  As  long  as  we  thus  distinguish  the  being 
from  the  doing,  the  character  from  the  conduct,  our  inter- 
pretation must  be  inadequate.  For  we  are  still  thinking 
of  will  as  if  it  were  a  machine,  cunningly  contrived  so  as 
to  produce  something  beyond  itself.  But,  as  Aristotle 
points  out,  the  activity  may  be  itself  the  end,  and  in 
natural  activities  {(^vaiKai),  as  distinguished  from  artificial 
{rexvLicai),  this  is  the  case.  Above  all,  in  the  case  of  the 
human  will,  the  Qnd  is  not  something  beyond  the  activity, 
but  is  simply  ivipyeca  -v/r^x^?,  such  an  ivipjeia  as  leads  to 
the  formation  of  a  certain  e^t?,  or  habit  of  similar  activity. 
The  will  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  making  something  else 
(even  a  state  of  feeling),  but  always  and  only  as  making 
itself.  By  separating  the  action  from  the  person,  conduct 
from  character,  and  by  placing  the  emphasis  on  the  con- 
duct rather  than  on  the  person,  Hedonism  misses  the  real 
significance  of  both.  The  ethical  importance  of  actions  is 
only  indirect,  as  the  exponents  of  character ;  the  ethical 
importance  of  character  is  direct  and  absolute.  Charac- 
ter and  activity  are  inseparable ;  character  is  a  habitual 
activity.  But  the  ethical  activity  which  is  identical  with 
character  is  not  properly  regarded  as  productive  of  any- 
thing beyond  itself ;  it  is  its  own  end,  and  exceeding  great 
reward. 

(c)itsre.so-       8.  In  yet  another  respect  does  the  hedonistic   theory 

vSTuetito  invalidate,  instead  of  explaining,  the  healthy  moral  con- 

fnc^y.*^'"       sciousness  of  mankind ;  it  resolves  Virtue  into  Prudence, 

and  sees  in  Duty  only  a  larger  and  wiser  Expediency. 

The  distinction  between  good  and  evil  becomes  a  merely 

relative  one,   a  distinction  of   degree   and   not   of   kind. 


All  motives  being  essentially  the  same,  moral  evil  is 
resolved  into  intellectual  error;  the  ethical  distinction 
disappears  in  the  psychological  identity.  "  On  the  hedon- 
istic supposition,  every  object  willed  is  on  its  inner  side, 
or  in  respect  of  that  which  moves  the  person  willing,  the 
same.  The  difference  between  objects  willed  lies  on  their 
outer  side,  in  effects  which  follow  from  them,  but  are  not 
included  in  them  as  motives  to  the  person  willing."  Thus 
Bentham  says  that  though  "it  is  common  to  speak  of 
actions  as  proceeding  from  good  or  bad  motives,"  "the 
expression  is  far  from  being  an  accurate  one,"  and  it  is 
"  requisite  to  settle  the  precise  meaning  of  it,  and  observe 
how  far  it  quadrates  with  the  truth  of  things.  With 
respect  to  goodness  and  badness,  as  it  is  with  everything 
else  that  is  not  itself  either  pain  or  pleasure,  so  is  it  with 
motives.  If  they  are  good  or  bad,  it  is  only  on  account  of 
their  efi'ects :  good,  on  account  of  their  tendency  to  pro- 
duce pleasure,  or  avert  pain  ;  bad,  on  account  of  their 
tendency  to  produce  pain,  or  avert  pleasure.  Now  the 
case  is,  that  from  one  and  the  same  motive,  and  from 
every  kind  of  motive,  may  proceed  actions  that  are  good, 
others  that  are  bad,  and  others  that  are  indifferent."  ^  He 
concludes  that  "there  is  no  such  thing  as  any  sort  of 
motive  that  is  in  itself  a  bad  one."  "  Let  a  man's  motive 
be  ill-will ;  call  it  even  malice,  envy,  cruelty  ;  it  is  still  a 
kind  of  pleasure  that  is  his  motive :  the  pleasure  he  takes 
at  the  thought  of  the  pain  which  he  sees,  or  expects  to 
see,  his  adversary  undergo.  Now  even  this  wretched 
pleasure,  taken  by  itself,  is  good :  it  may  be  faint ;  it  may 
be  short:  it  must  at  any  rate  be   impure:  yet  while  it 

^  '  Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation,'  chap.  x.  sees.  11,  12. 


124 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


125 


lasts,  and  before  any  bad  consequences   arrive,  it   is   as 
good  as  any  other  that  is  not  more  intense."  ^     In  this 
interpretation  of  motives  we  see  demonstrated  once  more 
the  externalism  and  the  intellectualism   of   the  theory.- 
The  criterion  is  found  outside  the  action,  in  the  conse- 
quences ;  not  within  the  action,  in  the  motive.     Actions 
are  simply  tendencies  to  produce  certain  o^esidts ;  and  in  so 
far  as  we  are  forced  from  the  outer  to  the  inner  view  of 
the  action,  from*  the  result  itself  to  the  tendency,  our 
judgment  proceeds  entirely  upon  the  relative  intellectual 
efficiency  of  the   tendency  in   question.     The  difference 
between  Virtue   and   Vice  is    reduced   to   one   between 
Prudence  and  Imprudence.      The  intellectual  process  may 
be  more  or  less  correct,  the  vision  of  the  consequences 
may  be  more  or  less  clear ;  but,  inasmuch  as  the  moral  or 
practical  source  of  the  action  is  always  found  in  the  same 
persistent  and  dominant  desire  for  pleasure,  the  intrinsic 
value   of  the   action   remains   invariable.      As   Professor 
Laurie  puts  it :  "A  man  may  be  careless  or  stupid,  and 
cast  up  the  columns  of  his  conduct-ledger  wrong ;  or  he 
may  be  foolish,  unwise,  intellectually  perverse ;  but  noth- 
inc^  more  and  nothing  worse."     Of  such  a  theory  must 
we  not  say,  with  Green,  that  "  though  excellent  men  have 
argued  themselves  into  it,  it  is  a  doctrine  which,  nakedly 
put,  offends  the  unsophisticated  conscience  ; "  that,  instead 
of  explaining  morality.  Hedonism  explains  it  away  ?     For 
the  very  essence  of  morality  is  that  the  distinction  between 
aood  and  evil  is  a  distinction  of  jprinciple  and  not  merely 
of  residt,  an  intrinsic  and  essential,  not  an  extrinsic  and 
contingent  distinction.     With  the  elimination  of  this  dis- 

1  Loc.  cit.,  sec.  10,  note. 


tinction  in  principle,  the  strictly  ethical  element  in  the  case 
is  eliminated.  With  the  glory  of  the  Ideal,  vanishes  also 
the  shame  and  sorrow  of  failure  to  attain  it;  with  the 
critical  significance  of  moral  alternative  vanishes  also  the 
infinite  possibility  of  moral  life  ;  all  its  lights  and  shadows, 
all  the  strangely  interesting  "colours  of  good  and  evil" 
disappear,  leaving  the  blank  monotony  of  a  prudential 
calculation.  

9.  Hedonism  seems  to  me  still  further  to  break  down  {d)  its  ac- 

count  of 

moral  reality  by  its  interpretation  of  moral  law  as  essen-  Duty, 
tially  identical  with  physical,  by  its  resolution  of  the 
ideal  into  the  actual,  of  the  Ought  into  the  Is.  This 
criticism  has  been  well  put  by  Professor  Sidgwick  in  the 
statement  that  "psychological  hedonism  is  incompatible 
with  ethical  hedonism."  If  it  is  the  law  of  our  nature  to 
seek  pleasure,  then  there  is  no  more  meaning  in  the  com- 
mand, "  Thou  shalt  seek  it,"  than  there  would  be  in  the 
command,  "Thou  shalt  fall"  to  the  stone,  whose  nature  it 
is  to  fall.  The  law  or  uniformity  of  nature  is  in  the  one 
case  physical,  in  the  other  psychological;  but  in  both 
cases  it  is  uniformity  of  nature.  In  the  words  of  Ben- 
tham,  so  "  sovereign  "  are  those  "  masters  "  —  pain  and 
pleasure — that  "  it  is  for  them  alone,"  not  only  "  to  point 
out  what  we  ought  to  do,"  but  "  to  determine  what  we  shall 
do.  On  the  one  hand,  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong, 
on  the  other,  the  chain  of  causes  and  effects,  are  fastened  to 
their  throne.  They  govern  us  in  all  we  do,  in  all  we  say, 
in  all  we  think ;  every  effort  we  can  make  to  throw  off 
our  subjection  will  serve  but  to  demonstrate  and  confirm 
it.    In  words  a  man  may  pretend  to  abjure  their  empire. 


i 


126 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


127 


but  in  reality  he  will  remain  subject  to  it  all  the  while."  ^ 
If  pleasure  is  the  constant  and  inevitable  object  of  desire, 
and  also  the  true  end  of  life,  it  cannot  present  itself, 
except  temporarily  or  relatively,  as  ethical  Law  or  Ought, 
as  "  dictate  "  or  ''  imperative."  But,  with  this  resolution 
of  moral  law  into  natural  law,  the  conception  of  Duty 
or  Obligation  is  at  once  invalidated.  Man's  attitude  to 
the  "  law "  of  his  life  becomes  essentiallv  the  same  as 
the  attitude  of  oMier  natural  beings ;  in  him,  as  in  all 
else — animal,  plant,  inorganic  thing  —  nature  must  in- 
evitably achieve  its  own  end.  The  only  difference  be- 
tween man  and  the  other  beings  is  that  he  can  see  further 
reaches  of  the  road  which  he  and  they  must  in  common 
travel. 

This  inevitable  logic  of  the  theory  is  recognised  by  its 
modern  disciples,  and  the  attempt  is  made,  in  the  true 
empirical  spirit,  to  account  for  the  illusion  of  Obligation 
by  establishing  its  relative  validity,  and  by  exhibiting  its 
genesis  and  function.  Two  classes  of  "sanctions"  have 
been  recognised — the  external  and  the  internal.  Ben- 
tham  recognises  only  the  external  sanctions — physical, 
political,  moral  or  popular,  and  religious — four  forces, 
ultimately  resolvable  into  the  single  force  of  nature  itself, 
which  coerce  man  to  act  for  the  general  happiness  rather 
than  selfishly  to  seek  his  own.  Mill,  Spencer,  and  Bain 
also  lay  much  stress  upon  the  external  sanctions  of 
morality — the  coercion  of  public  opinion,  the  law  of  the 
land,  education,  &c.  They  insist,  however,  that  the  ulti- 
mate sanction  is  an  internal  one.  There  is  an  authority 
other  than  that  of  mere  force ;  the  element  of  coercion  is 

^  'Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation,'  ch.  i.  sec.  1. 


not  the  ultimate  factor  in  morality.  There  is  an  inner 
authority  which  comes  from  insight  into  the  utility  of 
our  actions.  The  recognition  of  this  inner  authority 
brings  with  it  emancipation  from  Obligation  in  the  sense 
of  coercion,  and  the  substitution  of  spontaneity  for  con- 
straint. This  emancipation,  however,  merely  means,  as 
Evolutionism  explains  it,  that  the  laws  of  his  environ- 
ment, physical  and  social,  have  become  the  laws  of  man's 
own  life;  that  the  outer  has  become  an  inner  law;  and 
that  he  does  not  feel  the  pressure  any  more,  because  the 
moulding  of  him  into  the  form  of  his  environment  has 
been  perfected.  Thus  the  evolution  of  Morality  falls 
within  the  evolution  of  Nature,  and  our  fancied  emanci- 
pation from  the  force  of  the  "  nature  of  things  "  is  only 
a  demonstration  of  the  perfection  of  Nature's  mastery 
over  us. 

But,  indeed,  an  ultimate  vindication  of  Obligation  is 
obviously  impossible  on  the  hedonistic  theory.  Feeling 
cannot  be  the  source  of  this  idea.  Sensibility,  being 
essentially  subjective  and  variable,  cannot  yield  the 
objectivity  and  universality  of  the  ethical  imperative.  If 
the  state  of  my  sensibility  be  the  sole  criterion  of  good 
and  evil  activity,  I  cannot  (theoretically  at  least)  be 
obliged  to  do  what  offends  my  sensibility ;  I  must  so  act 
as  to  gratify  it.  But  feeling  is  just  that  element  in  my 
nature  and  experience  which  I  cannot  universalise ;  my 
sensibility  is  my  intimate  and  exclusive  individual  prop- 
erty, and  its  word  must  be  final  for  me.  I  cannot  even 
be  coerced  to  act  against  the  dictates  of  my  feeling ;  if,  in 
my  own  nature,  I  have  no  other  guide,  then  the  outward 
constraint  must  become  the  inward  constraint  of  sensi- 


128 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


129 


bility,  and  this  necessity  of  feeling  is  still  the  Must, 
or  rather  the  Is,  of  nature,  not  the  Ought  -  to  -  be  of 
morality.  But  is  not  such  a  translation  of  Ought  into 
Must  or  Is  a  violation  once  more  of  the  healthy  moral 
consciousness  of  mankind?  The  reality  of  moral  obli- 
gation stands  or  falls  with  the  reality  of  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  ideal  and  the  actual;  moral  obliga- 
tion is  man's  attitude  towards  the  moral  Ideal.  If, 
therefore,  we  resolve  the  ideal  into  the  actual,  as 
"psychological  hedonism"  does,  we  make  the  attitude 
of  duty  impossible. 

This  consequence  is  frankly  accepted   by  the   Evolu- 
tionary school.     The  sense  of  obligation  is,  they  say,  only 
temporary,  existing  during  the  earlier  stages  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  morality,  but  destined  to  disappear  with  the  com- 
pletion of  the  process.    Moral  life  is,  in  its  ideal,  perfectly 
spontaneous,   and    is    always    tending    to    become    more 
entirely   so.      "The   feeling   of   obligation  tends  to  dis- 
appear, as  fast  as  moralisation  progresses."     But  is  not 
the    conception   of   Duty   or   Obligation   a    central    and 
essential  element  of  the  moral  life,  to  be  explained  and 
vindicated  in  its  permanent  and  absolute  validity,  rather 
than  explained  away  as  only  temporarily  and  relatively 
valid?     Moral  progress,  while  in  a  sense  it  liberates  us 
from  the  irksomeness  of  duty,  also  brings  with  it  a  larger 
sense  of  duty,  and  a  more  entire  submission  to  it.     The 
disappearance    of    the    conception    would    mean    either 
sinking    to   the    level   of    the    brutes    or   rising    to   the 
divine.     As  Kant  contended,  to  act  without  a  sense  of 
obligation   does   not   become   our   station   in   the   moral 
It  is  this  characteristic  of  the  moral  life  that 


separates  it  for  ever  from  the  life  of  nature.  The  moral 
life  cannot,  as  moral,  become  "  spontaneous  "  or  simply 
"  natural."  The  goal  of  the  physical  evolution  and  that 
of  the  moral  are  not  ipso  facto  the  same.  A  perfectly 
comfortable  life,  that  is,  a  life  in  which  the  discomfort 
of  imperfect  adaptation  to  the  conditions  of  life  should 
no  longer  be  felt,  would  not  be  a  perfect  moral  life. 
Thus,  as  from  the  non-moral  a  quasi-moiBlitj  was  evolved, 
so  into  the  non-moral  it  would  ultimately  disappear.  To 
"  naturalise  the  moral  man  "  would  be  to  destroy  morality. 
To  make  the  sense  of  duty  a  coefficient  of  the  real,  by 
interpreting  it  as  merely  the  transitional  effect  and 
manifestation  of  the  imperfect  adjustment  of  the  in- 
dividual to  his  environment,  may  be  a  partial  account, 
but  is  at  any  rate  a  very  inadequate  account  of  the 
moral  situation.  That  situation  is  not  fully  understood 
until,  in  the  consciousness  of  Law  and  Duty,  is  heard  the 
eternal  claim  of  the  ideal  upon  the  actual. 


10.  This   leads   us   to   remark   that   Hedonism,  as   an  (e)  Failure 
ethical  theory,  can  never  account  for  more  than  the  con-  bmty  to 
tent  or  "  raw  material "  of  morality  ;  the  form,  or  prin-  principle 
ciple  of  arrangement,  of  this  raw  material  must  be  found  distrlbu-^^ 


universe. 


elsewhere.  In  other  words,  sensibility  does  not  provide 
for  its  own  organisation  ;  the  unifying  principle  of  its 
"  mere  manifold  "  must  be  found  in  a  rational  and  not 
in  a  sensible  principle.  To  adopt  a  Kantian  phrase,  we 
may  say  that  if  reason  without  feeling  is  empty,  feeling 
without  reason  is  blind.  This  is  only  to  repeat  what  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  and  even  Socrates,  said  long  ago — viz.,  that 
the  ordering  and  guiding  principle  of  human  life  is  to  be 


tion. 


130 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


131 


found  in  "  right  reason,"  and  that  it  is  the  place  of  feeling 
to  submit  itself  to  that  higher  guidance  and  control. 
Feeling  is  capricious,  peculiar  to  the  individual,  clamant, 
chaotic;  its  life,  unchecked  by  the  control  of  rational 
insight  and  foresight,  would  be  a  chameleon-like  life,  a 
thin-  that  owed  its  shape  and  colour  to  the  moments  as 
they'passed.  If  the  life  of  sensibility  is  to  be  unified  or 
organised,  it  cai^  only  be  through  the  presence  and  opera- 
tion in  it  of  rational  principle. 

This  problem  of  the  organisation  of  sensibility  early 
forced  itself  upon  the  attention  of  hedonistic  moralists. 
It  was  seen  that  the  ordering  of  man's  life  is  in  his  own 
hands,  that  the  organisation  of  sensibility  which  is  effected 
for  the  animal  must  be  effected  ly  man ;  and  the  question 
forced  itself  upon  reflection,  Whither  must  we  look  for 
cTuidance  ?     Is  feeling  self-sufhcient,  or  must  the  appeal 
be  made  from  feeling  to  reason  ?     The  history  of  Hedon- 
ism reveals,  as  we  have  seen,  a  growing  place  for  reason 
in  the  life  of  feeling.     The  significance  of  this  appeal  to 
reason  in  an  ethic  of  sensibility  was  not  at  first  perceived, 
and  we  find  the  appeal  made  accordingly  with  all  open- 
ness and  confidence  by  the  Epicurean  school.     A  success- 
ful life  of  feeling,  a  life  which  shall  attain  the  end  of 
sentient  existence,  must  be,  as  they  maintain,  a  rationally 
conducted  life,  which  plans  and  considers  and  is  always 
master  of  itself.    The  supreme  virtue  is  Prudence.    Modern 
hedonists  have  been  no  less  conscious  of  the  necessity  of 
solving  the  problem  of  the  organisation  of  feeling.     The 
utilitarians  especially  have  widened  the  problem  so  as  to 
include  the  organisation  of  the  social  as  well  as  of  the 
individual  life.     To  the  ancient  virtue  of  Prudence  they 


have  added  the  modern  virtue  of  Benevolence.  The 
problem  of  organisation  has  thus  become  more  clamant 
and  more  complex  than  ever.  A  rational  solution  of  this 
problem,  however,  is  seen  to  be  inconsistent  with  Hedon- 
ism, and  to  involve  a  surrender  of  the  case  for  the 
adequacy  of  that  theory  of  life.  The  attempt  has  been 
made,  accordingly,  in  different  ways,  to  reduce  this  ap- 
parently rational  control  of  sensibility  to  a  mere  control 
of  feeling  by  feeling.  Let  us  consider  the  success  of 
these  efforts,  in  the  case  (1)  of  the  individual,  and  (2) 
of  the  social  life. 

(1)  One  of  the  chief  novelties  of  Mill's  statement  of  the  (i)  Within 
hedonistic  Ethics  is  his  recognition  of  a  qualitative,  as  well  viduTi  Ufe. 
as  a  quantitative,  difference  between  feelings.     Feelings 
are,  he  insists,  higher  and  lower,  as  well  as  more  or  less 
intense,  enduring,  &c. ;  they  differ  in  rank,  as  well  as  in 
strength.     A  new  element  is  thus  added  to  the  definition 
of  Happiness.     The  pleasures  of  the  mind  are  superior  to 
those  of  the  body,  not  merely  because  the  former  are  en- 
during and  fruitful  in  other  pleasures,  while  the  latter  are 
evanescent  and  apt  to  carry  with  them  painful  conse- 
quences, but  because  the  former  are  the  pleasures  of  the 
higher,  the  latter  those  of  the  lower  nature.      Now,  the 
plea  for  this  distinction  of  quality  stands  or  falls  with  the 
validity  or  invalidity  of  the  reference  to  the  source  of  the 
pleasures  compared.     But  the  invalidity  of  such  a  refer- 
ence, from  the  standpoint  of  Hedonism,  is  perfectly  ob- 
vious.    If  pleasure  is  the  only  good,  then  pleasure  itself 
IS  the  only  consideration ;  the  source  of  the  pleasure  has  no 
hedonistic  significance,  and  ought  not  to  enter  into  the 
hedonistic  calculus.    If  Hedonism  will  be  "  psychological," 


132 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


133 


I! 


it  must  forego  this  distinction  of  source,  and,  with  it,  the 
distinction  of  quality  in  pleasures. 

Mill's  appeal  is,  like  Plato's,  to  those  qualified,  by  their 
wide  experience  and  their  powers  of  introspection,  to  judge 
of  the  relative  value  of  pleasures.    The  thinker  knows  the 
pleasures  of  thought  as  well  as  the  pleasures,  say,  of  sport, 
while  the  sportsman  knows  only  the  latter  class  of  pleasures 
and  not  the  fornjer ;  the  thinker's  preference  for  the  pleas- 
ures of  thought  has,  therefore,  the  authority  of  experience. 
The  preference  of  the  higher  nature  covers  the  case  of  the 
lower,  but  not  vice  versd.     But,  on  the  hedonistic  theory, 
this  claim  to  authority  must  be  disallowed.     The  prefer- 
ence of  the  higher  nature  covers  only  the  case  of  the 
higher  nature,  the  case  of  those  on  the  same  plane  of  sen- 
sibility  as   itself.      Its   preference   (and   the   deliverance 
founded  upon   it)  cannot   be   authoritative   for   a   lower 
nature,  for  a  being  on  a  different  plane  of  sensibility.     A 
"lower"  pleasure  will   be   more   intense   to   a   "lower" 
nature ;  and  if  pleasure  be  the  only  standard,  I  cannot  be 
asked  to  give  up  a  greater  for  a  less  pleasure,  to  sacrifice 
quantity  to  quality.     Quality  is  an  extra-hedonistic  crite- 
rion;   the   only  hedonistic    criterion  is    quantity  —  "the 
intensity  of  each  kind,  as  experienced  by  those  to  whom 
it  is  most  intense."     Indeed,  the  so-called  difference  of 
quality  will  be  found  to  resolve  itself  (so  far  as  pleasure 
is  concerned)  into  a  difference  of  quantity  for  the  higher 
nature.     To  the  higher  nature,  the  higher  pleasure  is  also 
the  more  intense  pleasure ;  to  the  thinker,  say,  the  pleas- 
ures of  thought  are  more  intense  than  the  pleasures  of 
the   chase.      This  greater  intensity  is  the  only  hedon- 
istic ground  of  the  higher  nature's  preference  for  its  own 


chosen  pleasures.  Upon  the  lower  nature  the  lower  pleas- 
ures have,  qud  pleasures,  an  equally  rightful  and  irresist- 
ible claim ;  and  upon  such  a  nature  the  higher  pleasures 
will  have  no  claim  until  for  it  too  they  have  become  more 
intense,  or  the  means  to  a  more  intense  pleasure.  Only 
thus  can  they  make  good  their  superior  claim  at  the  bar 
of  sensibility. 

If  we  press  Mill  to  assign  the  ultimate  ground  of  this 
preference,  and  of  the  corresponding  difference  in  kind 
between  pleasures,  he  refers  us  to  the  "  sense  of  dignity  " 
which  is  natural  to  man,  and  forms  "  an  essential  part  of 
the  happiness  of  those  in  whom  it  is  strong."  Socrates 
would  rather  be  Socrates  discontented  than  a  contented 
fool ;  he  could  not  lower  himself  to  the  fool's  status  and 
the  fool's  satisfaction,  without  the  keenest  sense  of  dissatis- 
faction, and  therefore  of  misery.  But  this  "  sense  of  dig- 
nity" cannot  be  resolved  into  desire  of  pleasure;  and 
while  it  certainly  regulates  man's  pleasures,  and  becomes 
a  real  element  in  his  happiness,  it  is  itself  the  constant 
testimony  to  the  possibility  and  the  imperativeness  for 
man  of  a  higher  life  than  that  of  mere  pleasure.  It  is  the 
utterance  of  the  rational  self  behind  the  self  of  sensibility, 
demanding  a  satisfaction  worthy  of  it — the  expression  of 
its  undying  aspiration  after  a  life  which  shall  be  the  per- 
fect realisation  of  its  unique  possibilities,  and  of  its  eternal 
and  "  divine  discontent  "  with  any  life  that  falls  short  of 
such  realisation  of  itself.  Not  the  attainment  of  pleasure 
as  such,  but  the  finding  one's  pleasure  in  activities  which 
are  worthy  of  this  higher  and  rational  nature, — such  is 
the  end  set  before  us  by  our  peculiar  human  "  sense  of 
dignity."     This  interpretation  of  the  end  does  enable  us 


134 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


to  understand  the  intrinsic  difference  of  pleasures,  but 
only  at  the  expense  of  surrendering  Hedonism  as  a  suffi- 
cient ethical  theory.  For  it  is  not  as  pleasures  that  the 
pleasures  are  *'  higher  "  or  "  lower."  The  clue  to  the  dis- 
tinction is  found  in  their  common  relation  to  the  one 
identical  rational  self ;  according  as  it  is  more  or  less  fully 
satisfied,  by  being  more  or  less  fully  realised,  is  the  pleas- 
ure "  hif^her "  or  "  lower."  Otherwise,  there  is  no  such 
distinction.  The  "  dignity  "  is  the  dignity  of  reason,  not 
of  feeling.  So  great  is  that  dignity  of  reason  that,  in  its 
presence,  the  claims  of  feeling  may  be  hushed  to  utter 
silence ;  that,  before  its  higher  claim,  the  question  of  pleas- 
ure and  pain,  in  all  their  infinite  degrees,  may  not  be  even 
heard.  Are  there  not  occasions  at  least  when  we  must 
take  this  "  heroic  "  view  of  life,  and  in  our  loyalty  to  an 
eternal  principle  of  right,  above  all  particular  sentient 
selves  and  their  pleasures  and  pains,  be  content  to  sacrifice 
all  our  capacity  for  pleasure,  it  may  be  utterly  and  for 
ever  ?  Such  an  action  can  only  be  described  as  faithful- 
ness to  the  true  self,  to  the  divine  ideal  of  our  manhood ; 
and  the  fact  of  the  possibility  of  such  an  action  and  of 
other  actions  which,  though  on  a  more  ordinary  plane, 
would  yet  be  impossible  but  for  the  inspiration  of  such  a 
spirit,  proves  that,  though  man  is  an  individual  subject  of 
feeling — of  passion  so  intense  that  it  may  seem  at  times  to 
constitute  his  very  life — he  is  something  more,  and,  in  vir- 
tue of  that  "  something  more,"  is  capable  of  rising  above 
himself,  above  his  own  little  life  of  clamant  sensibility, 
and  viewing  himself  and  his  present  activity  sub  specie 
ceternitatis,  in  the  clear  light  of  eternal  truth  and  right,  as 
a  member  of  a  rational  order  of  being,  and  subject  to  the 


HEDONISM. 


135 


law  of  that  order.     But  for  such  an  estimate  of  life  He- 
donism, as  the  Ethics  of  Sensibility,  cannot  find  a  place. 

Other  hedonistic  writers,  recognising  the  impossibility 
of  reconciling  Mill's  doctrine  of  the  intrinsic  difference  of 
pleasures  with  orthodox  Hedonism,  have  attempted  to  find 
the  clue  to  the  organisation  of  sensibility  outside,  in  the 
"  external  sanctions  "  already  mentioned,  in  the  pressure 
of  society  upon  the  individual.  The  seat  of  authority  is, 
they  hold,  outside  the  individual,  in  the  law  of  the  land, 
in  public  opinion,  &c. ;  not  within,  in  the  individual  con- 
science. The  inner  authority  is  only  the  reflection  of  the 
outer.  No  doubt  there  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  this,  as 
a  representation  of  the  normal  course  of  moral  education. 
Until  a  moral  being  has  learned  to  control  himself,  he 
must  be  controlled  from  without ;  until  the  moral  order  is 
developed  within  him,  that  order  must  be  impressed  upon 
him.  But  the  progress  of  moral  education  brings  us,  sooner 
or  later,  to  the  stage  at  which  the  outer  law,  if  it  is  to 
maintain  its  influence,  must  produce  its  "certificate  of 
birth,"  or,  in  other  words,  must  show  that  it  is  only  the 
reflection  of  an  inner  order.  The  rationale  of  the  outward 
order,  the  Why  of  the  social  forces,  must  inevitably  become 
a  question.  This  solution,  therefore,  only  pushes  the 
problem  a  step  farther  back. 

The  Evolutionists  see  that  the  external  controls — the 
physical,  social,  religious — are  really  "  pre-moral  controls 
within  which  the  moral  control  evolves," — its  scaffoldino^,  to 
be  taken  down  as  soon  as  the  structure  is  complete.  The 
external  pressure  of  environment  must  be  superseded 
by  an  internal  psychological  pressure.  This  inner,  and 
strictly  moral,  control  is  described  by  Spencer  as  the  sub- 


136 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


jection  of  the  earlier-evolved,  simpler,  and  presentative 
feelings  to  the  later-evolved,  more  complex,  and  repre- 
sentative feelings.  But  why  this  subordination?  Not 
simply  because  the  one  set  of  feelings  occur  earlier  and 
the  other  occur  later  in  the  evolution,  but  because  the 
one  class  of  feelings  are  more  efficient  factors  in  the  evo- 
lution of  conduct  than  the  other.  But  how  are  we  to  judge 
of  the  value  of  the  Evolution  itself  ?  What  is  the  ideal 
or  type  of  conduct  which'  it  is  desirable  to  evolve  ?  Our 
old  question  recurs  once  more,  therefore,  in  the  new  form  : 
What  is  the  criterion  of  ethical  value,  by  which  we  may 
define  and  determine  moral  evolution  or  progress  ?  Whither 
moves  the  ethical  process ;  what  form  of  conduct  do  we 
judge  to  be  worth  evolving  ?  Are  the  "  ethical  process  " 
and  the  "  cosmical  process  "  the  same,  or  even  coincident  ? 
The  fact  that  one  of  the  greatest  living  representatives  of 
scientific  Evolutionism  has  found  himself  forced  to  deny 
both  the  identity  and  the  coincidence,  is  striking  proof 
that  this  is  no  capricious  or  imaginary  question.^  The 
fact  of  a  certain  order,  and  the  fact  of  its  gradual  genesis 
or  development  in  time,  furnish  no  answer  to  the  question 
of  the  raison  d'etre  of  the  fact;  here,  as  elsewhere,  the 
answer  to   the    Quid   Facti   is   no   answer   to   the    Quid 

Juris. 

I  think  we  can  now  see  that  it  is  the  sheer  stress  of 
logic  that  has  driven  Professor  Sidgwick  to  appeal  from 
the  bar  of  sensibility  to  that  of  reason  for  the  lacking 
element  of  moral  authority,  for  the  organising  principle 
of  the  moral  life.  Even  within  the  sphere  of  individual 
experience,  sensibility  does  not  provide  a  principle  which 

1  Cf.  Professor  Huxley's  Romanes  Lecture  on  "  Evolution  and  Ethics." 


HEDONISM. 


137 


shall  determine  its  own  distribution.  How  to  compass 
the  attainment  of  the  "  greatest  happiness,"  not  for  the 
moment  but  "  on  the  whole,"  is  a  problem  which  feeling 
alone  is  unable  to  solve.  The  content  of  the  moral  life 
may  be  furnished  by  sensibility,  as  the  content  of  the 
intellectual  life  is  furnished  by  sensation;  but  the  form 
or  principle  of  arrangement  of  this  "  raw  material,"  the 
unifying  and  organising  principle,  is,  in  the  one  case  as  in 
the  other,  the  birth  of  reason. 

(2)  When  we  pass  beyond  the  sphere  of  the  individual 
life  to  that  of  society,  we  find  the  same  impasse  for  Hedon- 
ism. If  sensibility  does  not  provide  the  principle  of  its 
own  distribution  within  the  individual  life,  still  less  does  it 
provide  the  principle  of  its  distribution  between  ourselves 
and  others.  If  the  life  of  Prudence  cannot  be  reduced  to 
terms  of  mere  sensibility,  still  less  can  the  life  of  Justice 
and  Benevolence ;  if  the  instruction  of  reason  is  necessary 
in  the  former  case,  it  is  even  more  obviously  necessary  in 
the  latter.  Yet  the  disciples  of  Hedonism  have  boldly 
thrown  themselves  into  this  forbidding  breach,  and  in 
various  ways  have  sought  to  demonstrate  that,  here  again, 
what  seems  to  be  the  product  of  reason  is,  in  reality,  the 
product  of  sensibility.  In  the  first  place.  Mill  has  tried  to 
extend  his  "  psychological  proof  "  of  Hedonism  in  general 
to  Altruistic  Hedonism,  or  Utilitarianism.  Since  each 
desires  his  own  happiness,  it  follows  that  the  general 
happiness  is  desired  by  all.  But  the  logical  gap  is  so 
evident  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  Mill  himself 
was  not  aware  of  it.  The  aggregate  happiness  may  be 
the  end  for  the  aggregate  of  individuals,  and  the  happiness 
of  each  may  be  a  unit  in  this  aggregate  end.     But  to  con- 


(2)  Be- 
tween tlie 
individual 
and  soci- 
ety. 


138 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


elude  that  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number 
is  therefore  directly,  and  as  such,  an  end  for  each  individ- 
ual, is  to  commit  the  notorious  fallacy  of  Division.     In- 
directly and  secondarily— that  is,  as  the  means  to  the 
attainment  of  his  own  happiness-the  general  happiness 
may  become   an   end  for  the  individual;  and  thus   an 
altruism   may   be  reached,  which  is  merely   a  "trans- 
figured "  or  "  mediate "  egoism,  and  benevolence  may  be 
provisionally  vindicated  as  only  a  subtler  and  more  refined 
selfishness.     This,  however,  is  not  the  altruism  of  Mill 
and  the  Utilitarian  school.      Their  aim  is  to  establish 
benevolence   as  the   direct  and   substantive  law   of   the 
moral  life,  as  the  first,  and  not  the  second,  commandment 
of  a  true  moral  code.    They  offer  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  greatest  number  as  itself  the  End,  not  a  means  to 
one's  own  greatest  happiness. 

Mill  is  conscious  of  the  difficulty  of  the  transition  from 
egoism  to  altruism,  and  he  looks  to  sensibility  to  fill  the 
logical  gap.    We  have  ?i  feeling  for  the  happiness  of  others 
as^welllis  for  our  own,  as  Shaftesbury  and  Hutcheson  and 
Hume  had  already  maintained;  let  us  take- our  ground 
upon  this  psychological  fact-this  "  feeling  of  unity  "  with 
our  fellows,  a  mighty  emotional  force  which  must  break 
down  any  barriers  of  mere  logic.      To  this  disinterested 
sympathy  we  may  confidently  commit  the  task  of  the 
complete  reconciliation  of  the  general  with  the  individual 
happiness.    For  we  may  expect  an  indefinite  development 
of  the  feeling,  as  the  pain  which  sympathy  now  carries 
with  it  is  superseded  by  the  pleasure  of  sympathy  with 
more  complete  lives ;  or,  as  Spencer  states  it  in  the  lan- 
ouace  of  Evolution,  as  the  pains  of  sympathy  with  the 


HEDONISM. 


139 


pains  of  mal-adjustment  of  individuals  to  their  environ- 
ment are  superseded  by  the  pleasures  of  sympathy  with 
the  pleasures  of  more  and  more  perfect  adjustment  to 
environment. 

Such  a  solution,  however,  confuses  the  practical  with 
the  theoretical  problem.  It  does  not  follow  that  "con- 
duct so  altruistic  would  be  egoistically  reasonable,"  and 
what  we  are  in  search  of  is  such  a  rationale  of  altruism 
as  shall  reconcile  it  with  egoism.  Nor  can  the  "  feeling 
of  unity  "  with  our  fellows,  such  love  as  casts  out  selfish- 
ness, such  perfect  sympathy  as  overcomes  the  dualism  of 
virtue  and  prudence,  of  altruistic  and  egoistic  conduct, 
and  makes  us  "  love  our  neighbour  as  ourselves,"  be  found 
in  all  the  universe  of  sensibility.  Uninstructed  feeling  is 
incompetent  for  the  discharge  of  such  a  splendid  task; 
though,  when  instructed  and  illuminated  by  rational  in- 
sight, feelino;  alone  can  execute  it.  Like  Mill's  "  sense  of 
dignity,"  this  "  feeling  of  unity  "  has  a  higher  certificate 
of  birth  to  show  than  that  of  blind  unilluminated  feeling ; 
it,  too,  is  the  child  of  reason  by  sensibility.  Only  the 
niarriasje  of  these  two  can  have  such  a  noble  issue.  Sen- 
sibility  alone  might  unite  us  with  our  fellows;  but  it 
might  just  as  probably  separate  us  from  them.  For  if 
feeling  is  naturally  sympathetic  and  altruistic,  it  is  also 
naturally  selfish  and  egoistic.  The  problem  is  to  cor- 
relate and  conciliate  these  two  tendencies  of  human  sen- 
sibility. Can  we  trust  the  correlation  and  conciliation 
to  their  own  unguided  operation  ?  May  we  expect  a 
parallelogram  of  these  two  opposing  forces?  On  the 
whole,  must  we  not  say  that  the  tendency  of  mere 
sensibility  is  rather  to  separate  and  individualise,  than 


140 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


141 


» 


to  unite  and  socialise  men?     It  is  reason  that  unites 
us ;  the  sphere  of  the  universal  is  the  sphere  of  thought ; 
we'  think  in  common.     Sensibility  separates  us,  shuts  us 
up  each  in  his  own  little,  but  all  -  important,  world  of 
subjectivity ;  its  sphere  is  the  sphere  of  the  particular ; 
we  feel  each  for  himself,  and  a  stranger  intermeddleth 
not  with  the  business  of  the  heart.     At  any  rate,  sensi- 
bility alone,  inevitably  and  intensely  subjective  as  it  is, 
would  never  dictate  that  strict  "  impartiality  "  as  between 
our  neighbour's  happiness  and  our  own  which,  utilitarians 
agree,  must  be  the  principle  of  distribution  of  pleasures  if 
the   maximum   general  happiness   is   to   be   constituted. 
From    the    point    of   view   of    sensibility,   I   cannot    be 
"  strictly  impartial "  in  my  estimate  of  the  relative  value 
of  my  own  happiness  and  that  of  others ;  I  cannot  count 
myself,  or  even  others,  "  each  for  one,  and  no  one  for 
more  than  one";  I  cannot  "love  my  neighbour  as  myself," 
any  more  than  I  can  love  all  my  neighbours  alike.     I 
cannot  reduce  the  various  pleasures  that  offer  themselves 
in  the  field  of  possibility  to  a  unit  of  value ;  sensibility  is 
not  a  unitary  principle,  it  does  not  yield  a  common  meas- 
ure.    Ultimately,  my  own  pleasure  alone  has  significance 
for  me  as  a  sentient  being.     To  detach  myself  from  it,  or 
it  from  myself,  and  to  regard  it  from  the  standpoint  of 
an  ''  impartial  spectator,"  would  be  to  destroy  it.     If  all 
were  thus  "  strictly  impartial,"  there  would  be  no  gen- 
eral, because  there  would  be   no  individual,  happiness. 
Utilitarianism  puts  an  impossible  strain  upon  sensibility. 
The  formula  of  Evolution  has  been  brought  to  bear,  as 
we  have  seen,  upon  the  problem  of  the  reconciliation  of 
egoism  with  altruism.      Mr  Spencer  finds  that  there  is 


gradually  establishing  itself,  in  the  history  of  evolving  con- 
duct, not  merely  a  compromise,  but  a  conciliation  of  indi- 
vidual and  social  interests ;  and  he  confidently  constructs 
a  Utopia  in  which  the  happiness  of  the  individual  and  the 
interests  of  society  will  perfectly  coincide.     Mr  Stephen, 
on  the  other  hand,  acknowledges  a   permanent   conflict 
between  the  two.     "  The  path  of  duty  does  not  coincide 
with   the   path   of   happiness.  ...  By  acting   rightly,  I 
admit,  even  the  virtuous  man  will  sometimes  be  making 
a  sacrifice ; "  it  is  "  necessary  for  a  man  to  acquire  certain 
instincts,  amongst  them  the  altruistic  instincts,  which  fit 
him  for  the  general  conditions  of  life,  though,  in  particular 
cases,  they  may  cause  him  to  be  more  miserable  than  if 
he  were  without  them."     And  even  Mr  Spencer  acknow- 
ledges "  a  deep  and  involved  "—though  not  a  permanent — 
"derangement  of  the  natural  connections  between  pleasures 
and  beneficial  actions,  and  between  pains  and  detrimental 
actions."     But,  it  is  contended,  such  a  statement  will  not 
be  "  conclusive  for  the  virtuous  man.     His  own  happiness 
is  not  his  sole  ultimate  aim ;  and  the  clearest  proof  that 
a  given  action  will  not  contribute  to  it  will,  therefore,  not 
deter  him  from  the  action."     The  individual,  as  a  member 
of  the  social  organism,  forgets  his  own  welfare  or  happiness 

in  that  of  society. 

From  the  hedonistic  point  of  view,  however,  we  cannot 
thus  merge  the  individual  in  society.  We  must  not  be 
misled  by  the  metaphor  of  the  "  social  organism,"  —  for 
it  is  only  a  metaphor,  and  a  metaphor,  as  Mr  Stephen 
fears,  "  too  vague  to  bear  much  argumentative  stress."  As 
Professor  Sidgwick  remarks,  it  is  not  the  organism,  but 
"the  individual,  after  all,  that  feels  pleasure  and  pain." 


142 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


It  is  true  that  "the  development  of  the  society  implies 
the  development  of  certain  moral  instincts  in  the  indi- 
vidual, or  that  the  individual  must  be  so  constituted  as 
to  be  capable  of  identifying  himself  with  the  society,  and 
of  finding  his  pleasure  and  pain  in  conduct  which  is  socially 
beneficial  or  pernicious/'     Yet  the  individual  can  never 
wholly  identify  himself  with  the  society,  simply  because 
he  remains,  to  the  last,  an  individual.     It  is  said  that  the 
antagonism  of  individual  and  social  interests  is  incidental 
to  the  transition-stages  of  the  evolution,  and  that,  with  the 
development  of  sympathy,  and  the  perfect  adaptation  of 
the  individual  to  his  social  environment,  complete  identity 
of  interests  will  be  brought  about.     But,  so  long  as  the 
interest   is  merely  that  of  pleasure,  perfect  identity  of 
interests   is    impossible.      The   metaphor   of   the   "social 
organism  "  is  here  particularly  misleading.     As  Professor 
Sorley  remarks,  "the  feeling  of  pleasure  is  just  the  point 
where  individualism  is  strongest,  and  in  regard  to  which 
mankind,  instead  of  being  an  organism  in  which  each  part 
but  subserves  the  purposes  of  the  whole,  must  rather  be 
regarded  as  a  collection  of  competing  and  co-operating 
units."  1     From  the  point  of  view  of  pleasure,  society  is 
not  an  organism,  but  an  aggregate  of  individuals;   and, 
if  we  speak  of  the  "health"  of  the  society,  we  cannot 
mean  its  happiness,  but  simply  the  general  conditions  of 
the  happiness  of  its  individual  members.     As  Mr  Stephen 
acknowledges,  there   seems  to  be  a  permanent  dualism 
between  the  "  prudential "  and  the  "  social "  rules  of  life, 
"  corresponding  to  the  distinction  of  the  qualities  which 
are  primarily  useful  to  the  individual  and  those  which  are 

1  'Ethics  of  Naturalism,'  139,  140. 


HEDONISM. 


143 


primarily  useful  to  the  society."     The  former  code  has  not 
yet  been  incorporated  in  the  latter.^ 

Does  not  the  "stress  of  logic  once  more  force  us  to  appeal, 
with  Professor  Sidgwick,  from  sensibility  to  reason  ?  The 
latter  writer  holds  that  though  strict  egoistic  Hedonism 
cannot  be  transferred  into  universalistic  Hedonism  or 
Utilitarianism,  yet  "when  the  egoist  offers  .  .  .  the 
proposition  that  his  happiness  or  pleasure  is  good  not 
only /or  him,  but  absolutely,  he  gives  the  ground  needed 
for  such  a  proof.  For  we  can  then  point  out  to  him  that 
his  happiness  cannot  be  a  more  important  part  of  Good, 
taken  universally,  than  the  equal  happiness  of  any  other 
person.  And  thus,  starting  with  his  own  principles,  he 
must  accept  the  wider  notion  of  universal  happiness  or 
pleasure  as  representing  the  real  end  of  Keason,  the 
absolutely  Good  or  Desirable."  But  such  a  hedonistic 
perspective  is,  as  Mr  Sidgwick  sees,  impossible  for  un- 
aided Sensibility;  to  the  sentient  individual  his  own 
pleasure  is  indefinitely  "  more  important  than  the  equal 
happiness  of  any  other  person."  The  Good  of  Sensi- 
bility is  essentially  a  private  and  individual,  not  a 
common  and  objective  Good.  It  is  in  the  common 
sphere  of  reason  that  we  meet,  and,  having  met  there,  we 
recognise  one  another  when  we  meet  again  in  the  sphere 
of  sensibility.  To  the  rational,  if  not  to  the  sentient 
individual,  we  can  "  point  out  that  his  own  pleasure  is 
no  more  important,"  objectively  and  absolutely  regarded, 
*'than  the  equal  happiness  of  any  other  person;"  and 
sensibility,  thus  illuminated  by  reason,  may  be  trusted  to 
effect  that  reconciliation  of  the  individual  with  the  social 

^  On  the  permanence  of  this  dualism,  cf.  Kidd,  '  Social  Evolution.' 


144 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


145 


welfare,  which  it  never  could  have  brought  about  alone. 
From  this  point  of  view,  the  problem  at  once  loses  its 
hopeless  aspect.  The  true  altruism,  we  can  see,  is  not 
reached  by  the  negation  of  egoism,  or  only  by  the  negation 
of  the  lower  egoism.  There  is  a  higher  egoism  which 
contains  altruism  in  itself,  and  makes  "  transition "  un- 
necessary. I  have  not  indeed  discovered  my  own  true 
End,  or  my  own  true  Self,  until  I  find  it  to  be  not  ex- 
elusive  but  inclusive  of  the  Ends  of  other  Selves.  I  am 
not  called,  therefore,  to  transcend  egoism,  and  exchange 
it  for  altruism,  but  to  discover  and  realise  that  true 
egoism  which  includes  altruism  in  itself.  Since  each  is 
an  Ego,  the  others  as  well  as  I,  to  eliminate  egoism  would 
be  to  uproot  the  moral  life  itself.  The  entire  problem  is 
found  vjithin  the  sphere  of  egoism,  not  beyond  it;  and 
it  is  solved  for  each  individual  by  the  discovery  and 
realisation  of  his  own  true  Ego.  For,  truly  seen,  the 
spheres  of  the  different  Egos  are  like  concentric  circles. 
The  centre  of  the  moral  life  must  be  found  within  the 
individual  life,  not  outside  it.  The  claim  of  society  upon 
the  individual  is  not  to  be  explained  even  by  such  a  figure 
as  that  of  the  "  social  organism."  The  moral  Ego  refuses 
to  merge  its  proper  personal  life  in  that  of  society.  The 
unity  or  solidarity  of  the  individual  and  society  must 
be  so  conceived  as  that  the  wider  social  life  with  which 
he  identifies  himself,  so  far  from  destroying  the  personal 
life  of  the  individual,  shall  focus  and  realise  itself  in  that 
life.  But,  if  the  social  and  the  individual  life  are  to  be 
seen  thus — as  concentric  circles — their  common  centre 
must  be  found ;  and  it  can  be  found  only  in  reason,  not  in 
sensibility.     Lives  guided  by  mere  sensibility  are  eccen- 


tric, and  may  be  antagonistic ;  only  lives  guided  by  a  sen- 
sibility which  has  itself  been  illuminated  by  reason  are 
concentric  and,  necessarily,  co-operative,  because  directed 
to  a  common  rational  End. 

11.  In  coming  to  a  final  judgment  as  to  the  value  of  (/)The 
Hedonism  as  a  theory  of  the  Moral  Ideal,  we  must  be  physical 
guided   by   metaphysical   considerations    with   regard   to  tive™^' 
man's  ultimate   nature,  and   place  in  the  universe.     It 
has  been   truly   said   that   a   noble   action   or  life  is   a 
grand  practical  speculation  about  life's  real  meaning  and 
worth.    Hedonism,  like  every  ethical  theory,  is,  in  the  last 
analysis,  a  metaphysical  speculation  of  this  kind.     What 
are  we  to  sav  of  its  value  ?  ^. 

The  hedonistic  view  is  the  empirical,  "scientific,"  or 
naturalistic  view  of  human  life ;  it  is  the  expression  of 
ethical  realism,  as  distinguished  from  ethical  idealism  or 
transcendentalism.  It  derives  the  ideal  from  the  actual, 
the  Ought- to-be  from  the  Is.  To  it  the  ideal  is  only  the 
shadow  which  the  actual  casts  before  it.  Its  effort  is  "  to 
base  ethics  on  facts,  to  derive  the  rules  of  our  attitude 
toward  facts  from  experience,  to  shape  our  ideals  not  from 
the  airy  stuff  of  something  beyond  the  ken  of  science,  but 
in  accordance  with  laws  derived  from  reality."  It  is  an 
attempt  to  "  naturalise  the  moral  man,"  by  showing  the 
fundamental  identity  of  moral  laws  with  the  laws  of 
nature.  The  moral  order  falls  within  the  natural: 
"  sociological  laws  are  ...  of  a  natural  growth ;  the 
evolution  of  the  social  affairs  of  mankind  is  deeply 
rooted  in  the  conditions  of  things."  This  naturalism 
and   empiricism   of  the   hedonistic    theory    reach    their 

K 


146 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


147 


culmination  in  the  "scientific"  ethics  of  the  evolution- 
ary school. 

The  metaphysical  question  is,  more  particularly,  the 
question  of  the  nature  and  worth  of  the  human  person. 
"Conduct   will   always   be   different,"   says  M.  Fouillee, 
"  according  to  the  value,  more  or  less  relative  and  fleet- 
ing, which  one  accords  to  the  human  person ;  according 
to  the  worth,  more  or  les§  incomparable,  which  we  attri- 
bute to  individuality."      Is  man  an  end-in-himself,  the 
bearer  of  the  Divine  and  Eternal,  as  no  other  creature 
is,  capable  of  identifying  himself  with  and  forwarding  the 
divine  End  of  the  universe  by  accepting  that  as  his  life's 
ideal,  or  of  antagonising,  and  even,  in  a  sense,  of  frus- 
trating it  ?     Is  he  a  free  spiritual  being,  with  a  sentient 
and  animal  nature,  or  is  he  only  a  "  higher  animal "  ? 
In  the  words  of  the  writer  just  quoted :  "  There  are  cir- 
cumstances   in    which    the    alternative   which    presents 
itself  in  consciousness  is  the  following — Is  it  necessary 
to  act  as  if  my  sensible  and  individual  existence  were 
all,  or  as  if  it  were  only  a  part  of  my  true  and  universal 
existence  ? " 

Hedonism  rests  upon  what  Mill  has  happily  named 
the  "  psychological "  theory  of  the  Self.  What  Professor 
James  calls  the  Me,  the  "stream"  of  consciousness,  is 
regarded  as  the  total  and  ultimate  Self;  man  is  a 
"bundle  of  states,"  and  nothing  more.  It  follows  that 
his  sole  concern  in  life  is  with  these  passing  states  of 
feeling,  which  are  not  his  but  he.  If  we  are  merely 
sentient  beings,  subjects  of  sensibility,  then  the  nature 
of  that  sensibility  must  be  all  in  all  to  us.  If  the  per- 
manence of  a  deeper  rational  self-hood  is  a  mere  illusion, 


and  the  changing  sentient  self-hood  is  alone  real;  then 
our  concern  is  with  the  latter,  not  with  the  former,  and 
Cyrenaicism  is 'the  true  creed  of  life.  At  most.  Virtue 
is  identical  with  Prudence. 

But  we  cannot  thus  identify  the  Self  with  its  experi- 
ence. Interpret  our  deeper  self-hood  how  we  may,  we 
must  acknowledge  that  tve  are  more  than  the  "stream" 
of  our  feelings.  Our  very  nature  is  to  transcend  the 
present,  and  to  regard  our  life  as  having  a  permanent 
meaning  and  reality.  These  experiences  are  mine,  part  of 
my  total  and  continuous  experience,  and  I  am  more  than 
they.  It  needs  such  an  "  I "  to  account  for  the  "  psycho- 
logical Me."  The  Self  persists  through  all  its  changing 
"  states,"  and  its  demand  for  satisfaction  is  the  unceasinfr 
spring  of  the  moral  life.  It  is  not  a  mere  "sum"  of 
feelings;  it  is  their  unity,  that  by  reference  to  which 
alone  they  gain  their  ethical  significance.  In  mere  feel- 
ing there  is  no  abiding  quality,  it  is  a  thing  of  the 
moment.  The  devotee  of  pleasure  is  no  richer  at  the 
close  of  life  than  the  beggar  or  the  martyr.  His  pleasures, 
like  the  latter's  pains,  have  passed,  as  all  mere  feelings 
must.  But  lie  remains,  and  all  his  life's  experience,  from 
first  to  last,  has  left  its  record  in  his  character,  in  the 
permanent  structure  of  the  Self.  "Earth  changes,  but 
thy  soul  and  God  stand  sure."  A  theory  of  life  which 
concerns  itself  only  with  the  passing  experience,  and  not 
with  the  permanent  character  of  the  Self,  is  fundamentally 
inadequate. 


y 


1  o     rn  .  11  Tli6  merit 

iz.  io  sum  up  the  merit  and  demerit  of  Hedonism,  we  andde- 
may  say  that  it  does  well  in  emphasising  the  claims  of  Hedonism. 


148 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


sensibility  in  human  life ;  but  that  it  errs,  either  in  assert- 
ing these  to  be  the  exclusive  claims,  or  in  subordinating 
to  them  the  more  fundamental  claims  of  reason.  To  take 
the  demerit  first,  the  history  of  Hedonism  is  itself  a 
demonstration  of  the  impossibility  of  an  Ethic  of  pure 
Sensibility.  The  gradual  modification  of  the  theory  which 
we  have  traced  is  a  gradual  departure  from  strict  hedon- 
istic orthodoxy,  a  gradual  admission  of  reason  to  offices 
which  at  first  were  claimed  for  sensibility.  Man's  pleasure- 
seeking,  being  man's,  cannot  be  unreflective,  as  the  hedon- 
ists very  early  saw ;  and,  in  the  development  of  the  theory, 
the  reflective  element  is  more  and  more  emphasised.  The 
successful  life  of  pleasure  is  acknowledged  to  be  essen- 
tially a  calculating  life,  a  life  of  thought.  Mere  feeling, 
it  is  found,  is  an  insufficient  principle  of  unity.  It 
unifies  neither  the  individual  life  itself,  nor  the  individual 
and  the  social  life.  It  does  not  supply  a  regulative  prin- 
ciple, a  principle  of  the  distribution  of  pleasure.  Sensi- 
bility, like  sensation,  is  a  "  mere  manifold  "  which  has  to 
be  unified  by  the  rational  Self ;  as  the  one  is  the  content 
of  the  intellectual  life,  the  other  is  the  content  of  the 
moral  life.  But  the  form  of  knowledge  and  of  morality 
alike  is  rational.  Feeling  does  not  provide  for  its  own 
guidance ;  if  it  is  to  be  the  guide  of  human  life,  the  dark- 
ness of  animal  sensibility  must  receive  the  illumination 
of  reason.  Sooner  or  later.  Hedonism  finds  itself  com- 
pelled to  appeal  to  reason  for  the  form  of  morality ;  and 
the  history  of  the  theory  is  the  story  of  how  this  rational- 
ism which  was  implicit  in  it  from  the  first  has  gradually 
become  explicit. 

Yet  sensibility  is  the  content  of  morality,  and  if  we 


HEDONISM. 


149 


would  not  have  the  mere  empty  form,  we  must  recognise 
the  momentous  significance  of  the  life  of  sensibility  in- 
formed by  rea-son.  Feeling  is  an  integral  part  of  the 
moral  life,  which  no  ethical  theory  can  afford  to  overlook ; 
and  Hedonism  has  done  well  to  emphasise  its  importance. 
A  riurely  rational  life,  excluding  sensibility,  is  as  impost 
sible  for  man  as  a  life  of  mere  sensibility  without  reason. 
The  rational  life  is  for  him  a  life  of  sensibility  rationalised 
or  regulated  by  reason,  and  his  total  rational  well-being 
must  report  itself  in  sensibility.  This  is  the  permanent 
truth  in  Hedonism.  The  ascetic  ideal  is  a  false  and  in- 
adequate one ;  it  means  the  dwarfing  of  our  moral  nature, 
the  drawing  away  of  the  very  sap  of  its  life.  The  spring 
of  the  action,  its  origin,  is  in  sensibility  ;  if  the  End  or 
motive  is  a  product  of  reason,  the  roots  of  its  attractive 
power  are  in  sensibility.  And  the  way  to  the  attainment 
of  the  End  lies  through  pleasure  and  pain ;  the  state  of 
feeling  is  not  merely  the  index  and  concomitant  of  suc- 
cessful pursuit,  it  is  a  constant  guide  towards  success ; 
and  attainment  itself  brings  with  it  a  new  pleasure,  as 
failure  brings  with  it  a  new  pain.  Pleasure  is,  as  Aris- 
totle said,  the  very  bloom  of  goodness,  it  is  the  very  crown 
of  virtue.  The  threads  of  which  our  life  is  woven  are 
threads  of  feeling,  if  the  texture  of  the  web  is  reason's 
work.  The  hedonist  unweaves  the  web  of  life  into  its 
threads,  and  having  unwoven  it,  he  cannot  recover  the 
lost  design. 

I  think  we  must  go  even  farther,  and  admit  that,  while 
the  mere  distinctions  of  feeling,  as  pleasant  or  painful, 
are  not,  as  such,  moral  distinctions,  and  do  not  always 
coincide  with  the  latter,  yet  these  distinctions  are  natu- 


150 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


HEDONISM. 


151 


rally  connected  and  coincident.  If  pleasure  is  not  itself 
the  Good,  it  is  its  natural  and  normal  index  and  expression, 
as  pain  is  the  natural  and  normal  index  and  expression  of 
evil.  Hence  the  problem  always  raised  for  man  by  the 
suffering  of  the  good,  the  problem  that  fills  the  book  of 
Job,  and  seems  to  have  been  deeply  felt  by  Plato.  In  the 
first  book  of  the  *  Eepublic,'  we  find  an  impressive  picture  of 
a  life  of  perfect  Justice  (Plato's  word  for  Eighteousness), 
misunderstood  and  misinterpreted,  a  life  that  is  perfectly 
just,  but  seems  to  men  who  cannot  understand  it  to  be 
most  unjust.  "  They  will  say  that  in  such  a  situation  the 
just  man  will  be  scourged,  racked,  fettered,  will  have  his 
eyes  burnt  out,  and  at  last,  after  suffering  every  kind  of 
torture,  will  be  crucified  ;  and  thus  learn  that  it  is  best 
(that  is,  pleasantest)  not  to  he  but  to  seem  just."  The  "  just 
man"  generally  has  been  misunderstood  by  his  fellows; 
goodness  always  has  meant  suffering,  its  paths  never  have 
been  altogether  paths  of  pleasantness  and  peace.  The 
Christian  world  has  drawn  its  inspiration  from  a  Life  that 
has  seemed  to  it  the  fulfilment  of  the  Platonic  and  pro- 
phetic dream — a  life  of  transcendent  goodness,  which  was 
also  a  life  of  utmost  suffering,  of  suffering  even  unto  the 
death  of  the  Cross.  We  must  indeed  believe  that  the 
goal  of  moral  progress  is  the  complete  coincidence  of  good- 
ness with  happiness.  But  at  present  it  is  not  so,  and  the 
lesson  of  the  best  lives  is  that  the  way  to  that  goal  lies 
through  suffering.  Perhaps  we  cannot  understand  the 
full  significance  of  pain  in  relation  to  goodness,  but  its 
presence  in  all  noble  lives  tells  of  a  higher  End  than 
pleasure,  of  an  End  in  which  pleasure  may  be  taken  up  as 
an  element,  but  which  itself  is  infinitely  more,  of  an  End 


faithfulness  to  which  must  often  mean  indifference  to  pain, 
or,  better  even  than  indifference,  a  noble  willingness  to 
bear  it  for  the  sake  of  the  higher  Good  which  may  not 
otherwise  be  reached,  for  the  sake  of  that  highest  life 
which  is  not  possible  save  through  the  death  of  all  that 
is  lower  than  itself. 


152 


CHAPTEE    II. 


EIGORISM,   OR  THE  ETHICS   OF  REASON. 


Rigorism : 
its  rational 
and  ideal- 
istic stand- 
point. 


1.  We  have  traced  the  implicit  rationalism  of  the  hedon- 
istic theory  gradually  becoming  explicit  as  we  passed  from 
Cyrenaicism  to  Epicureanism,  from  Paley  and  Bentham 
to  Mill  and  Professor  Sidgwick.  This  appeal  to  reason 
became  necessary,  first,  for  the  guidance  of  individual 
choice  by  reference  to  a  criterion  of  the  "  higher "  and 
"  lower "  in  pleasure,  and,  secondly,  as  the  only  possible 
means  of  transition  from  Egoism  to  Altruism,  from  Self- 
ishness to  Benevolence. 

But  in  both  ancient  and  modern  times  the  ethical  rights 
of  Pteason  have  been  emphasised  no  less  strongly,  and 
often  no  less  exclusively,  than  the  ethical  rights  of  Sensi- 
bility. This  assertion  of  the  claims  of  Pteason  in  the  life 
of  a  rational  being  is  at  the  basis  of  the  common  modern 
antithesis,  or  at  any  rate  distinction,  between  Duty  and 
Pleasure,  between  Virtue  and  Prudence,  between  the 
Eight  and  the  Expedient.  In  ethical  theory,  too,  "  duty 
for  duty's  sake"  has  been  proclaimed  with  no  less  em- 
phasis than  "pleasure  for  pleasure's  sake,"  as  the  last 
word  of  the  moral  life.     The  effort  to  idealise  or  spirit- 


RIGORISM. 


153 


ualise  the  moral  man  has  been  no  less  strenuously  pursued 
than  the  effort  to  "  naturalise  "  him.  In  Eeason,  rather 
than  in  Sensibility,  it  has  been  maintained,  is  to  be  found 
the  characteristic  element  of  human  nature,  the  quality 
which  differentiates  man  from  all  lower  beings,  and  makes 
him  man.  This  is  not  so  much  an  explicit  theory  of  the 
End  or  Ideal,  as  a  vindication  of  the  absoluteness  of  moral 
Law  or  Obligation,  of  the  category  of  Duty  as  the  supreme 
ethical  category.  But  it  is,  at  any  rate,  a  delineation  of 
the  ideal  life,  and  therefore,  implicitly  or  explicitly,  of  the 
Moral  Ideal  itself. 

The   rational,   like   the   hedonistic.   Ethics    takes   two  its  two 
forms — an  extreme  and  a  moderate.     The  former  is  that  treme^d 
the  good  life  is  a  life  of  pure  reason,  from  which  all  sensi-  "^^'^^^^*^- 
bility  has  been  eliminated.     The  latter  is  that  it  is  a  life 
which,  though  containing   sensibility  as   an  element,  is 
fundamentally  rational — a  life  of  sensibility  guided   by 
reason.     In  either  case,  the  entire  emphasis  is  laid  upon 
reason,  and  the  theory  may  be  called  Eigorism,  because 
the  attitude  to  sensibility  is  that  of  rational  superiority 
and  stern  control,  where  it  is  not  that  of  rational  intoler- 
ance and  exclusiveness.     Eeason  claims  the  sovereignty, 
and  sensibility  is  either  outlawed,  or  degraded  to  the  status 
of  passive  obedience. 

Whether  in  its  extreme  or  in  its  moderate  form,  Eigor- 
ism is  the  expression  of  ethical  Idealism,  as  Hedonism  is 
the  expression  of  ethical  Eealism.  The  one  is  the  charac- 
teristic temper  of  the  modern  Christian  world,  as  the 
other  is  the  characteristic  temper  of  the  ancient  Classi- 
cal world.  Our  normal  and  dominant  mood  is  that  of 
"  strenuous  "  enthusiasm,  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  actual, 


154 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


155 


of  aspiration  after  the  ideal ;  the  supreme  category  of 
our  life  is  Duty  or  Oughtness.  The  normal  and  dominant 
mood  of  the  Greeks  was  just  the  reverse — the  mood  of 
sunny  sensuous  contentment  with  the  present  and  the 
actual.  That  "  discontent "  which  we  account  the  evi- 
dence of  our  diviner  destiny  was  foreign  to  their  spirit. 
The  ethics  of  Socrates  is  the  philosophical  expression  of 
this  characteristic  Greek  view  of  life ;  moderation  or  self- 
control  is  the  deepest  principle  he  knows.  For  Aristotle^ 
too,  the  sum  of  all  virtue  is  the  ''  middle  way  "  between 
the  two  extremes  of  excess  and  defect.  The  master- virtue 
of  the  Greeks,  in  life  and  in  theory,  is  a  universal  Tem- 
perance or  o-co(f)poavv7]. 

Yet  it  is  to  the  Greeks  that  we  must  trace  back  the 
rigoristic,  no  less  than  the  hedonistic,  view  of  life.  For 
the  Greek  mind,  though  sensuous,  is  always  clear  and 
rational,  always  "  lucid,"  always  appreciative  of  form ; 
and  the  rational  life  has  therefore  always  a  peculiar 
charm  for  it.  This  appreciation  of  the  rational  life 
finds  expression  in  the  Socratic  ideal  of  human  life  as 
a  life  worthy  of  a  rational  being,  founded  in  rational 
insight  and  self-knowledge — a  life  that  leaves  the  soul 
not  demeaned  and  impoverished,  but  enriched  and  satis- 
fied, adorned  with  her  own  proper  jewels  of  righteousness 
and  truth.  PJato  and  Aristotle  follow  out  this  Socratic 
clue  of  the  identity  of  the  good  with  the  rational  life. 
For  both,  the  life  of  virtue  is  a  life  "  accordincr  to  rio-ht 
reason,"  and  the  vicious  life  is  the  irrational  life.  Both, 
however,  distinguish  two  degrees  of  rationality  in  what 
was,  for  Socrates,  a  single  life  of  reason.  First  there  is 
the  reason-guided  life  of  sensibility,  or  the  life  according 


cisni. 


to  reason ;  but  beyond  that  lies  the  higher  life  of  reason 
itself, — the  intellectual,  contemplative,  or  philosophic  life. 
The  chief  source  of  this  ethical  Idealism  in  Greek  phil- 
osophy, which  was  destined  to  receive  such  a  remarkable 
development  in  the  Stoic  school,  and,  through  the  Stoics, 
in  our  modern  life  and  thought,  is  to  be  found  in  Plato's 
separation  of  the  ideal  reality  from  the  sensible  appear- 
ance. If,  however,  we  would  learn  the  original  expo- 
sition of  Greek  Eigorism,  we  must  go  back  to  the  im- 
mediate disciples  of  Socrates,  the  notorious  Cynic  school. 

2.  The  quality  in  the  Socratic  character  which  most  (A)  Ex- 
impressed  the  Cynics  was  its  perfect  self-control  {iy  orism.  (a) 
Kpdreca),  its  sublime  independence  of  circumstances,  its  (a)^Cyni- 
complete  self-containedness  and  self-sufficiency.  This 
became  the  ideal  of  the  school.  Happiness,  they  main- 
tained, is  to  be  sought  within,  not  without ;  in  virtue  or 
excellence  of  character,  not  in  pleasure  {avrdpKT]  rrjv 
dpeT7]v  7rpo9  evhaipiovLav).  Wisdom  and  happiness  are 
synonymous,  and  the  life  of  the  wise  is  the  passionless 
life  of  reason.  The  life  of  pleasure  is  the  life  of  folly, 
the  wise  man  would  rather  be  mad  than  pleased.  For 
pleasure  makes  man  the  slave  of  Fortune,  the  servant  of 
circumstance.  Independence  is  to  be  purchased  only 
by  indiflerence  to  pleasure  and  pain,  by  insensibility 
(dirdOeLa),  by  the  uprooting  of  the  desires  which  bind  us 
to  outward  things.  There  must  be  no  rifts  in  the  armour 
of  the  soul,  through  which  the  darts  of  fortune  may 
strike :  the  man  who  has  killed  out  all  desire  is  alone 
impenetrable  by  evil.  But  the  wise  man  is  impenetrable. 
Not  without,  but  within  the  soul,  are  the  issues  of  life. 


156 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


157 


Desire  binds  us  to  that  which  is  external,  and  foreign 
{^evLKov)  to  the  soul.  But  "  for  each  thing  that  only  can 
be  a  good  which  belongs  to  it,  and  the  only  thing  which 
belongs  to  man  is  mind  or  reason  "  {vov^,  \6yo^).  This, 
man's  proper  inner  good,  outward  evil  cannot  touch ;  as 
Socrates  said,  "]^o  evil  can  happen  to  a  good  man." 
Without  such  virtue,  nothing  is  good ;  with  it,  there  is  no 
evil.  This  is  the  constant  next  of  Cynic  morality — the 
supremacy  of  the  human  spirit  over  circumstance,  its 
mastery  of  its  own  fortunes,  founded  on  the  sovereignty 
of  reason  over  passion.  The  sum  of  Cynic  Wisdom  is  the 
sublime  pride  of  the  masterful  rational  self,  which  can 
acknowledge  no  other  rule  than  its  own,  and  which  makes 
its  possessor  a  king  in  a  world  of  slaves. 

But  these  "  counsels  of  perfection  "  are  hard  to  follow. 
The  life  of  wisdom  is  a  veritable  "choice  of  Hercules." 
The  true  riches  of  the  soul  are  to  be  purchased  only  by 
selling  all  the  deceitful  riches  of  pleasure.  The  one  path- 
way to  heaven  is  the  beggar-life.  The  emancipation  from 
the  outward  is  difficult,  and  the  Cynic  rule  of  life  is  one 
long  course  of  self-denial.  We  must  reduce  our  wants 
to  a  minimum,  we  must  extirpate  all  artificial,  luxurious, 
and  conventional  needs,  and  return  to  the  simplicity  of 
"  nature."  Better  far  to  climb  with  staff  and  scrip  the 
steep  ascent  of  virtue,  than,  burdened  with  wealth  and 
houses  and  lands,  to  remain  in  the  City  of  Destruction. 
For  the  reward  of  such  self-denial  is  a  perfect  peace  of 
mind,  which  nothing  can  perturb.  The  man  who  has 
attained  to  the  wisdom  of  life  has  penetrated  all  illusions, 
and  conquered  death  itself ;  for  if  none  of  the  experiences 
of  life  are  truly  evil,  since  they  cannot  touch  the  soul  that 


has  steeled  itself  in  an  armour  of  indifference,  least  of  all 
is  that  which  is  not  an  experience  at  all. 

This  pride  of  reason  led  the  Cynics  into  strange  ex- 
travagance and  fanaticism.  Their  return  to  "nature," 
their  scorn  for  public  opinion,  their  self-conscious  affecta- 
tions, their  lack  of  personal  dignity,  their  contempt  for 
their  fellows,  whom  they  regarded,  like  Carlyle,  as  "  mostly 
fools,"  have  become  proverbial.  Yet  Cynicism  is  no  mere 
irresponsible  or  unimportant  vagary  of  the  human  mind. 
It  is  the  first  philosophical  expression,  among  the  Greeks, 
of  that  tendency  with  which  we  have  become  so  familiar 
since, — the  tendency  to  see  in  the  life  of  reason  the  only 
life  worthy  of  a  rational  being,  and  in  all  natural  sensi- 
bility a  trap  laid  for  the  soul  of  man,  in  which  he  will 
be  snared  if  he  avoids  it  not  altogether;  it  is  the  first 
and  the  most  extreme  expression  of  the  ascetic  principle. 
That  principle  was  reasserted  later,  by  the  Stoics,  with 
such  impressiveness  and  dignity  that  the  importance  and 
originality  of  its  earlier  statement  have  perhaps  been 
under-estimated. 

The  Greeks  do  not  appear  to  have  taken  the  Cynics  (^)  stoi- 
seriously ;  much  had  to  occur  in  their  experience  before 
they  were  ready  to  accept  that  lesson  of  self-discipline 
which  had  been  the  burden  of  the  Cynic  school.  The 
course  of  the  moral  life  ran  very  smooth  in  those  pros- 
perous city-states ;  it  was  not  difficult  to  live  a  harmoni- 
ous, measured,  rhythmic  life  in  such  conditions.  And 
the  Greek  spirit  always  was  aesthetic  rather  than  ethical, 
the  category  of  its  life  was  the  beautiful  rather  than  the 
good.  Not  until  the  jar  came  from  without,  not  till  the 
fair  civil  order  broke  down,  was  the  discord  felt,  or  the 


158 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


159 


How  it 
differs  from 
Cynicism  : 
(1)  ideal- 
istic V. 
natural- 
istic. 


need  for  a  more  perfect  and  a  diviner  order,  and  salvation 
sought  in  conformity  to  its  higher  law.  Then  men  re- 
membered the  wistful  note  which  had  been  struck  by 
Plato,  and  by  Aristotle  too, — how  both  had  spoken  of 
another  life  than  that  of  this  world,  and  were  willing 
to  listen  to  the  Stoics  as  they  repeated  the  old  Cynic 
doctrine. 

But  Stoicism  differed  from  Cynicism  in  several  important 
particulars.  (1)  For  the  crude  "  naturalism  "  of  the  Cynics, 
the  Stoics  substitute  an  idealistic  or  transcendental  view 
of  life.  The  ideal  life  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  the  life 
of  reason  itself,  they  regard  as  the  only  worthy  life  for 
man.  The  old  Cynic  phrase,  "  life  according  to  nature  " 
{6/jLo\oyovfjL€vco(;  rfj  (j)va€i  ^rjv),  thus  receives,  for  the  Stoics, 
a  new  meaning.  Por  in  nature  ((f)vo-L<i) — whether  the 
nature  of  things  or  their  own  nature — they  find,  with 
Heraclitus,  a  couimon  reason  (\0709),  and  a  common  law 
(i/oyLto?).  They  are  thus  able  to  identify  the  rational  life 
with  the  life  "  according  to  nature,"  and  both  with  the  life 
"  according  to  law."  They  do  not,  like  the  Cynics,  fly  in 
the  face  of  custom  and  convention,  the  common  reason  has 
for  them  taken  shape  and  embodiment  in  the  established 
laws  and  usages  of  human  society,  and  conformity,  rather 
than  non-conformity,  becomes  man's  duty.  In  this  sense, 
the  Stoics  are  at  once  realists  and  idealists  :  for  them  "  the 
real  is  the  rational."  And,  although  they  too  counsel 
indifference  and  callousness  to  the  events  of  fortune  and 
the  changing  circumstances  of  human  life,  their  resigna- 
tion to  the  course  of  things  is  supported  by  the  conviction 
that  "all  things  work  together  for  good,"  that  what 
happens  is  always  most  fit,  and  that  it  becomes  man  to 


accept  as  such  all  the  events  of  life  and  the  grand  event  of 
death  itself.  "  Nothing  can  happen  to  me  which  is  not 
best  for  thee,  0  'Universe." 

(2)  For  the  sheer  individualism  of   the  Cynics,  Stoi-  (2)  Cosmo- 

d'         .  1        1  1  .   .  1  .        T  -,         politan  V. 

cism  otiers  to  man  a  new  and  nobler  citizenship  than  that  individual- 
of  any  earthly  State.      The  Stoic  "  cosmopolitanism  "  or  ^"^  ^^' 
"citizenship  of  the  world"  is   no  merely  negative  con- 
ception.    It  is  true  that  the  Stoics  are  individualists,  and 
that  their  ideal   life  is  self-contained   and  self-sufficient. 
This  aspect  of  the  Cynic  ideal  they  reassert.     But  their 
emancipation  from  the  narrow  limits  of  the  Greek  State 
gives  them  a  spiritual  entrance  into  a  larger  and  nobler 
society,  a  "  City  of  God,"  the  universal  kingdom  of  human- 
ity itself.     On  the  earth  that  true  citv  is  not  found ;  it  is 
not,  like  Plato's,  a  "  Greek  city,"  but  a  spiritual  State,  and 
the  Stoic  citizenship  is  in  the  heavens.     It  is  like  Kant's 
Kingdom  of  Intelligence,  in  which  each  citizen  is  at  once 
sovereign  and  subject,  for  its  law  is  the  law  of  reason 
itself.     "  '0  Koa/jLOf;  Giaavel  ttoXl^  eanv — the  world  is  as  it 
were  a  commonwealth,  a  city  ;  and  there  are  observances, 
customs,  usages  actually  current  in  it— things  our  friends 
and  companions  will  expect  of  us,  as  the  condition  of  our 
living  there  with  them  at  all,  as  really  their  peers  or  fellow- 
citizens.     Those  observances  were,  indeed,  the  creation  of 
a  visible  or  invisible  aristocracy  in  it,  whose  actual  man- 
ners, whose  preferences  from  of  old,  become  now  a  weighty 
tradition,  as  to  the  way  in  which  things  should  be  or  not 
be  done,  are  like  a  music,  to  which  the  intercourse  of  life 
proceeds — such  a  music  as  no  one  who  had  once  caudit 
its   harmonies   would   willingly  jar.      In   this   way,   the 
hecoming,  as  the  Greeks — or  manners,  as  both  Greeks  and 


160 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


161 


(3)  The 
Stoic  Mel- 
ancholy. 


Eomans  said,  would  indeed  be  a  comprehensive  term  for 
duty.  Eighteousness  would  be,  in  the  words  of  the  Ceesar 
himself,  but  the  'following  of  the  reasonable  will  and 
ordinance  of  the  oldest,  the  most  venerable,  of  all  cities 
and  polities — the  reasonable  will  of  the  royal,  the  law- 
giving element  in  it — forasmuch  as  we  are  citizens  of  that 
supreme  city  on  high,  of  which  all  other  cities  beside  are 
but  as  single  habitations.' "  ^ 

(3)  But  the  failure  to  find  on  earth  any  counterpart  of 
that  fair  city  in  the  heavens  bred  a  new  melancholy  in 
the  Stoics,  which  was  strange  to  the  buoyant  spirit  of  the 
earlier  Greeks.  Not  that  the  Stoics  are  pessimists ;  the 
Cynics  were  pessimists,  but  their  pessimism  seemed  to 
give  them  much  satisfaction  in  the  added  sense  of  their 
own  superiority.  The  Stoics,  on  the  contrary,  are  opti- 
mists ;  idealism  is  always  optimistic.  All  things  are, 
truly  understood,  most  fit;  rational  order  pervades  the 
universe.  But  the  shadow  of  the  ideal  and  supersensible 
lies  upon  the  actual  and  sensible ;  the  shadow  of  eternity 
is  cast  athwart  the  w^orld  of  time.  The  soul  that  has 
beheld  the  abiding  Eeality  is  possessed  by  the  sense  of 
the  utter  insignificance  and  transitoriness  of  all  temporal 
interests,  and  sees  in  all  things  the  seeds  of  quick  decay 
and  dissolution.  Its  cry  is  for  rest  and  peace,  cessation 
from  futile  striving.  Vanitas  xanitatum  I  The  wise  man 
has  awakened  from  life's  fevered  dream,  and  broken  the 
spell  of  all  its  illusions.  His  is  the  quiet  and  imper- 
turbable dignity  of  spirit  that  goes  not  well  with  mirth 
or  vulgar  enjoyment.  To  him  death  is  more  welcome 
than  life,  for  it  is  the  way  out  of  time  into  eternity.     "  I 

^  Walter  Pater,  'Marius  the  Epicurean,'  ii.  15,  16. 


find  that  all  things  are  now  as  they  were  in  the  davs  of 
our  buried  ancestors — all  things  sordid  in  their  elements, 
trite  by  long  usage,  and  yet  ephemeral.  How  ridiculous, 
then,  how  like  a  countryman  in  town,  is  he  who  wonders 
at  aught !  Doth  the  sameness,  the  repetition  of  the  pub- 
lic shows,  weary  thee  ?  Even  so  doth  that  likeness  of 
events  make  the  spectacle  of  the  world  a  vapid  one. 
And  so  must  it  be  with  thee  to  the  end.  Por  the  wheel 
of  the  world  hath  ever  the  same  motion,  upward  and 
downward,  from  generation  to  generation.  When,  then, 
shall  time  give  place  to  eternity  ? "  ^  "  To  cease  from  action 
— the  ending  of  thine  effort  to  think  and  to  do — there  is 
no  evil  in  that.  .  .  .  Thou  climbedst  into  the  ship,  thou 
hast  made  thy  voyage  and  touched  the  shore;  go  forth 
now !  Be  it  into  some  other  life ;  the  divine  breath  is 
everywhere,  even  there.  Be  it  into  forgetfulness  for 
ever ;  at  least  thou  wilt  rest  from  the  beating  of  sensible 
images  upon  thee,  from  the  passions  which  pluck  thee 
this  way  and  that,  like  an  unfeeling  toy,  from  those  long 
marches  of  the  intellect,  from  thy  toilsome  ministry  to 
the  flesh."  ^ 

Thus  the  Stoic  life  is  a  life  of  pure  reason,  in  which  no 
place  is  found  for  natural  sensibility.  It  is  founded  on 
the  Platonic  dualism  of  Form  and  Matter,  the  Ideal  and 
the  Sensible,  as  well  as  on  the  psychological  dualism,  com- 
mon to  both  Plato  and  Aristotle,  of  the  rational  and  the 
irrational.  The  maxim.  Live  according  to  nature,  means 
— Live  according  to  that  rational  order  which  is  the  deep- 
est nature  of  things.  Let  the  Logos  which  reveals  itself 
in  the  universe  reveal  itself  also  in  thee,  who  art  a  part 

1  Walter  Pater,  op.  cit,  i.  205.  ^  o^,  ciL,  i.  206. 


162 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


163 


of  the  universe.     As  for  the  life  of  passion  and  sensibility, 
that  is  essentially  a  lawless  and   capricious   life.      The 
animal  may  fittingly  obey  its  claim,  and  submit  to  its 
slavery.     But  thou,  who  canst  thinJc,  who  canst  enter  into 
and  make  thine  own  possession  the  rational  order  of  the 
universe,  art  surely  called  upon  to  follow  the  leading  of 
that  superior  insight,  and  to  conduct  thyself  in  all  thy 
doings  as  a  sharer  in  the  universal  Eeason.    Nor  is  it 
only  needful  that  thou  regulate  and  be  master  of  thy 
feelings,  thou  must  be  absolutely  emancipated  from  them. 
Xo  "  harmony  "  of  the  rational  and  the  irrational  elements 
is  possible,  such  as  Plato  fondly  dreamed  of ;  there  must 
be  war  to  the  knife,  and  no  quarter  given  to  the  enemy 
of  the  soul,  if  the  soul  is  to  live.     Feeling  is  the  bond 
that  ties  thee  to  the   external,  to  what  is  not  thyself, 
and  makes  thee  the  slave  of  circumstance  and  fortune. 
Thou  must  assert  thine  independence  of  all  outside  thy- 
self; thou  must  learn  to  be  self-contained  and  at  home 
with  thyself;  and  thou  canst  only  be  so  by  living  the 
life  of  Reason,  and  obeying  in  all  things  and  with  a  single 
mind  its  uncompromising  Law.     Therein  lies  thy  proper 
Good ;  all  else  is  in  reality  indifferent,  and  must  become 
so  to  thee,  if  thou  w^ouldst  attain  the  peace  and  complete- 
ness of  the  good  life.     With  the  true  wisdom  of  rational 
insight  into  the  eternal  substance  of  things  will   come 
apathy  to  all  the  interests  of  time — mere  "  shadow-shapes 
that  come  and  go  " — and  the  emancipated  spirit  will  lay 
hold  on  the  eternal  life  of  the  universal  Eeason. 

It  was  not  among  the  Greeks  themselves,  but  in  the 
larger  Eoman  and  Christian  worlds,  that  Stoicism  was  to 
come  to  its  real  influence  upon  mankind.     The  Eomans 


seemed  to  themselves  to  have  realised  the  Stoic  dream  of 
a  universal  empire  of  Humanity,  and  in  the  "  natural  law  " 
of  the  Porch  they  found  a  basis  for  their  splendid  juris- 
prudence. So  powerfully  did  its  stern  ideal  of  life  appeal 
to  the  characteristic  "  severitas  "  of  the  Eoman  mind,  that 
Stoicism  found  at  Eome  a  new  life,  and  its  finest  achieve- 
ments are  Eoman  rather  than  Greek.  It  is,  however, 
through  the  medium  of  Christianity  that  Stoicism  has 
chiefly  influenced  the  modern  world. 

3.  The  fundamental  idea  of  Christianity  is  the  idea  of 
the  divine  Eighteousness,  with  its  absolute  claim  upon  the 
life  of  man.    This  idea  was  the  inheritance  of  Christianitv 
from   the   Hebrews,  but  it   was  reasserted  with  a  new 
emphasis  and  a  new  rigour.     "  Except  your  righteousness 
shall  exceed  the  righteousness  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees, 
ye  shall  in  no  case  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."    It 
is  a  righteousness  not  of  external  act  or  observance,  but  of 
the  inner  man,  a  righteousness  of  heart  and  will.     And 
though  the  Founder  of  Christianity  did  not,  by  word  or 
life,  inculcate  an  ascetic  ideal,  but  gave  his  ungrudging 
sanction  to  all  the  natural  joys  of  life,  his  uncompromis- 
ing attitude  towards  unrighteousness   meant  inevitably, 
for  himself  and  for  his  disciples,  suffering,  self-sacrifice,  and 
death.     The  essential  spirit  of  the  Christian  life  is  the 
spirit  of  the  Cross.     It  is  out  of  the  death  of  the  natural 
man  that  the  spiritual  life  is  born.    "  Strait  is  the  gate,  and 
narrow  is  the  way,  that  leadeth  unto  life."    The  way  of  the 
Christian  life  is  the  way  of  the  Master,  the  way  of  utter 
self-sacrifice.     "  He  that  seeketh  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and 
he  that  loseth  his  life  shall  find  it."     The  natural  life  of 


(5)  Mod- 
ern :  (a) 
Christian 
Asceti- 
cism. 


164 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


165 


sensibility  is  not  in  itself  evil ;  but  it  must  be  perfectly 
mastered  and  possessed  by  the  rational  spirit.  If  it  "  of- 
fends "  the  spirit's  life — and  it  may  "  offend  "  at  any  point 
— it  must  be  denied.  "  If  thy  right  eye  offend  thee,  pluck 
it  out,  and  cast  it  from  thee  :  for  it  is  better  for  thee  that 
one  of  thy  members  should  perish,  and  not  that  thy  whole 
body  should  be  cast  into  hell.  And  if  thy  right  hand 
offend  thee,  cut  it  off,  and  cast  it  from  thee  :  for  it  is  pro- 
fitable for  thee  that  one  of  thy  members  should  perish, 
and  not  that  thy  whole  body  should  be  cast  into  hell."  So 
exacting  is  the  Christian  ideal  of  righteousness. 

We  know  how  this  moral  rigour  of  Christianity  was 
developed  by  its  disciples  into  an  asceticism  of  life,  in 
which  the  Stoic  "  apathy  "  was  reproduced  and  given  a  new 
ethical  significance.  Not  to  save  himself  from  the  attacks 
of  a  capricious  and  often  evil  Fate,  but  to  save  the  spirit's 
life  from  the  snares  of  the  tempting  Flesh,  is  man  called 
upon  to  eradicate  all  desire.  For  the  flesh,  as  such,  is 
antagonistic  to  the  spirit,  and  matter  is  essentially  evil. 
The  thought  of  this  ethical  dualism — this  home-sickness 
of  the  soul  for  the  ideal  world,  whence  it  had  fallen  into 
this  lower  life  of  sense  and  time — came  to  the  Christian 
Church,  as  it  had  come  to  the  Stoics,  from  Plato.  To  Plato 
all  education  had  been  a  process  of  purification,  a  gradual 
recovery  of  what  at  birth  man  lost,  an  ever  more  perfect 
"  reminiscence  "  of  the  upper  world.  There  is  man's  true 
home ;  not  here,  in  the  cave  of  sensibility,  the  soul's  sad 
prison-house.  If  this  thought  never  took  hold  of  the 
Greeks  themselves,  we  know  how  potent  it  was  with  the 
Neo-platonists,  and  with  the  Mediaeval  saints  and  mystics. 
The  mediaeval  world  was  a  world  of  thought  and  aspira- 


tion, of  "  divine  discontent "  with  the  actual,  an  eternal 
world  in  which  no  room  was  found  for  the  interests  of 
time,  a  world  of  contemplation  rather  than  of  activity. 
Of  this  spirit  the  characteristic  product  was  Monasticism, 
with  its  separation  from  the  world,  and  its  vows  of  chastity, 
poverty,  and  obedience.  But  Christian  Asceticism  did  not 
pass  away  with  the  Middle  Age.  It  survives  not  only  in 
contemporary  Catholicism,  but,  to  a  large  extent,  in  the  life 
of  Protestantism  as  well.  Christianity  is  still  apt  to  be 
"  other-worldly,"  to  regard  this  life  as  merely  a  pilgrimage, 
and  a  preparation  for  that  better  life  which  shall  begin 
with  the  separation  of  the  spirit  from  the  body  of  its 
humiliation,  to  regard  Time  as  but  "  the  lackey  to 
Eternity,"  to  think  that  here  we  have  only  the  Preface, 
there  the  Volume  of  our  life,  here  the  Prelude,  there  the 
Music.  Accounting  his  citizenship  to  be  in  the  heavenly 
and  eternal  world,  and  preoccupied  with  its  affairs,  the 
Christian  saint  is  apt  to  sit  loose  to  the  things  of  time, 
and  to  cultivate  an  aloofness  and  apathy  of  spirit  no  less 
real  than  that  of  Stoic  sage  or  mediaeval  monk. 

4.  The  great  modern  representative,  in  ethical  philoso-  (/s)  Kantian 
phy,  of  the  extreme  or  ascetic  form  of  Eigorism  is  Kant,  dentaiism. 
the  author  of  one  of  the  most  impressive  moral  idealisms 
of  all  time.  For  Kant  the  Good — the  only  thing  absolute 
and  altogether  good — is  the  good  will.  And  the  good  will 
is,  for  him,  the  rational  will,  the  will  obedient  to  the  law 
of  the  universal  reason.  It  is  the  prerogative  of  a  rational 
being  to  be  self-legislative.  The  animal  life  is  one  of 
heteronomy ;  the  course  of  its  activity  is  dictated  by  ex- 
ternal stimuli.     And  if  man  had  been  a  merely  sentient 


166 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


167 


being,  and  pleasure  his  end,  nature  would  have  managed 
his  life  for  him  as  she  manages  the  animal's,  by  provid- 
ing him  with  the  necessary  instincts.  The  peculiarity  of 
man's  life  is  that  he  belongs  to  two  spheres.  As  a  sensible 
being,  he  is  a  member  of  the  animal  sphere,  whose  law  is 
pleasure ;  as  a  rational  being,  he  enacts  upon  himself  the 
higher  law  of  reason,  which  takes  no  account  of  sensibility. 
Hence  arises  for  him  the  Categorical  Imperative  of  Duty 
— the  "  Thou  shalt "  of  the  rational  beinc;  to  the  irrational 
or  sentient.  As  a  rational  being,  man  demands  of  himself 
a  life  which  shall  be  reason's  own  creation,  whose  spring 
shall  be  found  in  pure  reverence  for  the  law  of  his  rational 
nature.  Inclination  and  desire  are  necessarily  subjective 
and  particular ;  and  in  so  far  as  they  enter,  they  detract 
from  the  ethical  value  of  the  action.  Nor  do  consequences 
come  within  the  province  of  morality ;  the  goodness  is 
determined  solely  by  the  inner  rational  "  form "  of  the  act. 

The  Categorical  quality  of  the  imperative  of  morality  is 
founded  on  the  absolute  worth  of  that  nature  whose  law- 
it  is.  A  rational  being  is,  as  such,  an  end-in-himself,  and 
may  not  regard  himself  as  a  means  to  any  other  end.  He 
must  act  always  in  one  way — viz.,  so  as  to  fulfil  his 
rational  nature ;  he  may  never  use  his  reason  as  a  means 
by  which  to  compass  non-rational  ends.  The  law  of  his 
life  is :  "  So  act  as  always  to  regard  humanity,  whether  in 
thine  own  person  or  in  that  of  another,  always  as  an  end, 
never  as  a  means." 

The  moral  law  thus  becomes  for  Kant  the  gateway  of 
the  noumenal  life.  As  subject  to  its  categorical  impera- 
tive, man  is  a  member  of  the  intelligible  or  supersensible 
world — the   world   of  pure   reason.     From  that  higher 


vantage-ground,  he  sees  the  entire  empirical  life  disap- 
pear, as  the  mere  shadow  or  husk  of  moral  Eeality.  As 
moral,  he  lives  and  moves  and  has  his  being  in  that 
noumenal  world  from  which,  as  intellectual,  he  is  for  ever 
shut  out.  As  he  listens  to  the  voice  of  Duty,  and  con- 
cedes the  absolute  and  uncompromising  severity  of  its 
claim  upon  his  life,  he  ''feels  that  he  is  greater  than  he 
knows"  and  welcomes  it  as  the  business  of  his  life  to 
appropriate  his  birth-right,  and  to  constitute  himself  in- 
deed, what  in  idea  he  is  from  the  first,  a  member  and 
a  citizen  of  the  intelligible  world.  There  too  he  finds 
the  goodly  fellowship  of  universal  intelligence,  and  be- 
comes at  once  subject  and  sovereign  in  the  kingdom  of 
pure  reason. 

5.  Such  are  the  chief  forms  of  Rigorism,  in  its  extreme  Criticism 
type,  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  the  fundamental  Rigorism, 
defects  of  such  a  view  of  life  necessitated  the  transition  to  tion  to  °^^" 
the  more  moderate  form  of  the  theory.     The  view  rests  "  ^*^^^^*^' 
upon  an  absolute  psychological  dualism  of  Eeason  and 
Sensibility,  of  the  rational  and  the  irrational.     Because 
reason  differentiates  man  from  the  animal,  and  his  life 
must  therefore  be  a  rational  life,  it  is  inferred  that  all  the 
animal  sensibility  must  be  eliminated.     The  result  is  an 
intellectualising  of   the  moral  life,  the  identification  of 
goodness  with  wisdom,  of  virtue  with  knowledge,  of  duty 
with  rational  consistency,  of  practical  activity  with  phil- 
osophic contemplation.     But  this  passionless  life  of  reason 
is  not  the  life  of  man  as  we  know  him.     We  cannot  sum- 
marily dismiss  the  entire  life  of  sensibility  as  irrational. 
If  we  do  so,  we  lose  the  entire  content  of  morality,  and 


168 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


what  is  left  is  only  its  empty  form.  It  is  notorious  that 
the  Kantian  ethics  are  purely  formal,  giving  us  the  sine 
qiid  non  of  the  good  life,  but  not  the  very  face  and 
lineaments  of  goodness  itself.  By  identifying  Will  with 
Practical  Eeason,  and  by  demanding  that  the  motive  of 
all  activity  shall  be  found  within  reason,  it  provides  the 
mere  Form  of  will,  a  will  that  wills  itself,  a  logical  intel- 
lect rather  than  a  good  will.  The  ideal  life  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle  is  confessedly  a  purely  intellectual  or  speculative 
life.  But  the  flesh  and  blood  of  moral  reality  come  from 
sensibility.  It  has  been  truly  said  that  the  movement  of 
the  real  world  is  not  "  a  ghostly  ballet  of  bloodless  cate- 
gories." No  more  is  the  movement  of  human  life.  In 
its  dance,  reason  and  sensibility  must  be  partners,  even 
though  they  often  quarrel.  Xay,  their  true  destiny  is  a 
wedded  life,  in  which  no  permanent  divorce  is  possible. 
That  feeling  is  simply  the  irrational,  and  incapable  of 
becoming  an  element  in  the  life  of  a  rational  being,  is 
sheer  mysticism ;  and  mysticism  in  Ethics  is  no  less  false 
than  mysticism  in  Metaphysics.  To  deny  the  reality  of 
any  element  of  the  real  world, — and  to  refuse  to  deal  with 
it, — that  is  the  essence  of  mysticism.  The  very  problem 
of  the  moralist  is  set  for  him  by  the  existence  of  this 
dualism  of  reason  and  sensibility  in  human  nature,  and 
by  this  alternative  possibility,  in  human  life,  of  guidance 
by  feeling  or  guidance  by  reason.  To  eliminate  or  to 
disparage  either  element,  to  destroy  the  alternative  moral 
possibility,  is  to  cut  the  knot  of  life's  great  riddle  rather 
than  to  unravel  it. 

An  implicit  acknowledgment  of  this  necessity  of  feeling, 
if  the  ends  of  reason  are  to  take  body  and  shape,  and  to 


RIGORISM. 


169 


find  their  actual  realisation,  is  made  by  Kant  when,  after 
excluding  all  "pathological  inclination,"  that  is,  all  em- 
pirical sensibility,  he  brings  back  sensibility  itself  in  the 
form  of  "  pure  or  practical  interest."  ^  The  moral  law,  he 
finds,  demands  for  its  realisation  a  spring  or  motive-force 
in  sensibility ;  only,  the  feeling  must  be  the  offspring  of 
reason.  The  psychological  distinction  of  reason  and  sensi- 
bility is,  however,  clearly  admitted,  as  well  as  the  ethical 
consequence  that  both  must  enter  as  factors  into  the  life 
of  Will.  Plato  and  Aristotle  may  be  said  to  make  the 
same  concession,  in  their  description  of  ordinary  "  moral " 
or  "  practical "  virtue  as  the  excellence  of  the  compound 
nature  of  man,  mixed  of  reason  and  irrational  sensibility. 
This  life  of  feeling  controlled  by  reason,  they  both  seem 
to  say,  is  the  characteristic  life  of  man,  though  the  higher 
and  divine  life  may  be  attained  at  intervals,  and  ought 
never  to  be  lost  sight  of  as  the  ideal. 

One  phase  of  the  problem  seems  to  have  been  quite 
ignored  by  the  school  whose  views  we  are  considering — 
namely,  that  it  is  through  sensibility  that  we  are  delivered 
from  ourselves,  and  find  the  way  to  that  fellowship  with 
mankind  which  the  Stoics  so  impressively  portray,  and 
which  Kant  contemplates  in  his  Kingdom  of  Ends.  "  Cool 
reason  "  is  not  a  sufficient  bond,  we  must  feel  our  unity 
with  our  fellows.  Though  reason  is  universal,  the  Ethics  of 
pure  Pieason  are  inevitably  individualistic.  The  Stoic  and 
the  Kantian  life — the  ascetic  life,  is  essentially  self-con- 
tained, is  a  life  which  withdraws  into  itself.  Its  dream 
of  a  kingdom  of  universal  intelligence,  of  a  City  of  God, 
of  a  communion  of  saints,  remains  for  it  a  dream  which 

1  Cf.  Dewey,  *  Outlines  of  Ethical  Theory,'  86. 


170 


•  THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


EIGORISM. 


171 


can  never  be  realised  on  earth.  The  bands  that  unite  iis 
with  our  fellows  are  bands  of  love ;  reason,  alone,  is  clear 
in  its  insight  into  the  common  nature  and  the  common 
weal,  but  powerless  to  realise  it.  Kill  out  sensibility,  and 
you  not  only  impoverish  your  own  life,  but  you  separate 
yourself  from  your  fellows  no  less  thoroughly  than  does 
the  egoistic  hedonist. 

We  must  say,  therefore,  that  the  Ethic  of  pure  Eeason 
is,  no  less  than  the  Ethic  of  pure  Sensibility,  a  premature 
unification  of  human  life.  The  true  unity  is  the  unity  of 
the  manifold;  the  true  universal  is  the  universal  that 
contains  and  explains  all  the  particulars ;  the  true  a  'priori 
is  the  a  'priori  which  embraces  the  empirical.  The  sim- 
plification required  is  one  which  shall  systematise  and 
organise  all  the  complex  elements  of  our  nature  and  our 
life,  not  one  which  is  reached  by  the  elimination  of  the 
complexity  and  detail.  The  rigoristic  principle,  like  the 
hedonistic,  is  too  simple.  As  well  try  to  eliminate  sensa- 
tion from  the  intellectual  life,  as  sensibility  from  the 
moral.  In  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  the  form  of 
reason,  without  the  content  of  feeling,  is  empty ;  as  the 
content  of  feeling,  without  the  form  of  reason,  is  blind. 
The  mere  unity  of  reason  is  as  inadequate  to  the  concrete 
moral  life  as  is  the  mco^e  manifold  of  sensibility.  The  one 
provides  a  purely  general  ethical  formula,  as  the  other 
provides  only  the  "data  of  ethics." 
y  Nor  is  self-sacrifice  the  last  word  of  morality  to  any 
part  of  our  nature.  It  is  only  a  moment  in  the  ethical 
life, — one  phase  of  its  most  subtle  process,  not  its  be-all 
and  its  end-all.     The  true  life  of  man  must  be  the  life  of 


the  total,  single  self,  rational  and  sentient ;  the  sentient 
self  is  to  be  sacrificed  only  as  it  opposes  itself  to  the 
deeper  and  truer  human  self  of  reason.     The  sentient  self 
is  not,  as  such,  evil  or  irrational,  and  it  may  be  completely 
harmonised  with  the  rational   self.     The  ascetic  ideal  is 
thoroughly  false  and   inadequate,  and   must   always   be 
corrected  by  the  hedonistic.      It  is  not  right  that  the 
ruddy  bloom  of  youth  and  health  should  be  all  "  sicklied 
o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of   thought,"  that  the  thrill  of 
quickened   life   should   be  stilled  and  deadened   to   the 
stately  march  of  reason  in  the  soul,  and  that  "  apathy " 
and  "impassibility"  should  take  the  place  of  the  eager 
pulsing  life  of  nature  in  the  human  heart.     The  spectacle 
of  the  world   is  always  fresh  and  fascinating,   and   we 
should  keep  our  eyes  bright  to  see  it.     The  music  of  life 
need  never  grow   monotonous,  and  our  ears  should  be 
alert  to  catch  its  strains.     Life  is  life,  and  we  should  not 
make  it  a  meditatio  mortis.     Its  banquet  is  richly  spread, 
and  we  should  enjoy  it  with  a  full  heart,  nor   see  the 
death's  head  ever  at  the  feast.     Aloofness  of  spirit  from 
the  world  and  all  its  eager  crowding  human  interests  is 
not  in  the  end  the  noblest  attitude.    The  body  is  not  to  be 
thought  of  as  the  mere  "  prison-house  of  the  soul,"  from 
which  it  must  escape  if  it  would  live  in  its  own  element. 
Escape  it  cannot,  if  it  would.      The  spirit  and  the  fiesh 
cannot  cut  adrift  from  one  another ;  each  has  its  own 
lesson  for  its  fellow.     The  way  to  all  human  goodness  lies 
in  learning  "  the  value   and  significance  of  flesh."     The 
passionless  life  of  reason  strikes  cold  and  hard  on  the 
human  heart. 


172 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


"  But  is  a  calm  like  this,  in  truth, 
The  crowning  end  of  life  and  youth. 
And  when  this  boon  rewards  the  dead, 
Are  all  debts  paid,  has  all  been  said  ? 

•  ••••• 

Ah  no,  the  bliss  youth  dreams  is  one 
For  daylight,  for  the  cheerful  sun. 
For  feeling  nerves  and  living  breath — 
Youth  dreams  a  bliss  on  this  side  death. 
It  dreams  a  rest,  if  not  more  deep. 
More  grateful  than  this  marble  sleep  ; 
It  hears  a  voice  within  it  tell : 
Cairn's  not  life's  crown,  though  calm  is  well. 
'Tis  all  perhaps  w^hich  man  requires, 
But  'tis  not  what  our  youth  desires."  ^ 

The  Stoic  and  the  Kantian  view  of  life  rests,  as  we 
have  seen,  upon  a  metaphysical  idealism  which  finds  no 
place  for  the  reality  of  the  sensible  and  phenomenal  world. 
Such  is  the  cleft  between  these  two  worlds  that  the  one 
cannot  enter  into  relation  with  the  other,  and  withdrawal 
into  the  noumenal  world  of  pure  reason  becomes  the  only 
path  to  the  true  or  ideal  life.  The  entire  life  of  sensi- 
bility is  disparaged  and  despised  as  shadowy  and  unreal, 
a  dream  from  which  we  must  awaken  to  moral  reality. 
But  such  a  transcendental  idealism  must  always  call  forth 
the  protest  of  a  healthy  moral  realism.  "  The  world  and 
life's  too  big  to  pass  for  a  dream."  Nay,  the  advocate  of 
sensibility  will  not  hesitate  to  say  that  your  world  of  pure 
reason  is  all  a  mystic  dream,  that  moral  reality  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fleeting  moments  and  the  pleasures  and  pains 
they  bring,  that  he  who  has  dulled  his  sensibilities,  and 
lived  the  Stoic  life  of  "  apathy "  to  these,  has  missed 
life's  only  treasure.     The  Cyrenaic  argument  for  engross- 

1  Matthew  Arnold,  "Youth  and  Calm." 


EIGORISM. 


173 


ment  with  the  present  is  the  same  as  the  Stoic  argument 
for  apathy  to  it — that  the  present  is  evanescent,  and 
perishes  with  the  using.  If  our  idealism  is  to  stand,  it 
must  contain  realism  within  itself  ;  if  the  spirit  is  to 
live  its  own  proper  life,  it  can  only  be  by  annexing  the 
territory  of  the  flesh,  and  establishing  its  own  order  there. 
The  necessity  of  this  acknowledgment  of  the  rights  of 
sensibility  and  of  the  relative  truth  of  the  hedonistic 
interpretation  of  life  has  led  to  the  more  moderate 
statements  of  Eigorism  or  the  Ethics  of  Eeason,  which 
we  find  among  both  the  Greek  and  modern  moralists. 


6.  Moderate  rigorism  is,  one  might  say,  the  character- 
istic Greek  view  of  the  moral  life ;  the  Greek  ideal  is  a 
life  of  rational  sensibility.  Such  an  ideal  alone  satisfies 
at  once  the  intellectualism  and  the  sensuousness  of  the 
national  genius,  its  love  of  rational  clearness  and  form, 
and  of  aesthetic  satisfaction.  The  fact  that  the  good  is 
also  for  the  Greeks  the  beautiful,  and  that  the  supreme 
category  of  their  life  is  rather  to  koKov  than  to  a^aOov, 
carries  with  it  the  necessity  that  a  life  of  reason  divorced 
from  sensibility  could  never  prove  satisfying.  Their  keen 
appreciation  of  the  "  things  of  the  mind,"  of  the  purely 
scientific  and  philosophical  interests,  made  it  equally  im- 
possible for  them  to  rest  content  with  a  life  of  sensi- 
bility divorced  from  reason.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore, 
to  find  impressive  and  invaluable  statements  of  the  neces- 
sity of  this  ethical  harmony  in  Greek  philosophical  litera- 
ture. We  need  only  recall  here  Heraclitus'  suggestions 
of  that  order,  uncreated  by  gods  or  men,  which  pervades 
all  things,  of  that  "  common  wisdom  "  to  which  man  ought 


[B)  Moder- 
ate Rigor- 
ism.    («) 
Its  begin- 
nings in 
Greek  phil- 
osophy. 


174 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


RIOORISM. 


175 


to  conform  his  life,  of  those  "  fixed  measures  "  which  the 
Sun  himself  must  observe  "  else  the  Erinnyes  will  find 
him  out,"  of  the  universal  "harmony  of  opposites "  by 
which  the  process  of  things  is  made  possible ;  the  Socratic 
life  and  teaching,  with  its  perfect  moderation,  its  firj^ev 
a^av,  its  reduction  of  the  conduct  of  life  to  the  discovery  of 
the  true  "  measure  "  of  life's  experience ;  Plato's  "  harmony" 
of  appetite  and  "  spirit "  with  reason,  and  his  picture  of 
the  soul  as  a  well-ordered  State  in  which  Justice,  the  key 
to  all  the  virtues,  lies  in  the  doing  of  its  proper  work  by 
every  element,  and  of  the  common  weal  that  results  from 
such  a  perfect  division  and  co-operation ;  and  the  Aristo- 
telian conception  of  Virtue  as  the  choice  of  the  Mean 
between  the  two  extremes  of  excess  and  defect,  of  Happi- 
ness or  Welfare  as  consisting  in  rational  activity  accom- 
panied by  pleasure,  of  virtuous  activity  as  essentially 
pleasant  because  habitual  and  easy,  and  thus  finally  of 
pleasure  itself  as  the  bloom  and  crown  of  the  life  of 
Virtue. 


(&)  Its 
modern  ex- 
pressions 


of  Con 
science. 


7.  It  is  in  modern  philosophy,  however,  that  the 
moderate  version  of  liigorism  has  received  the  greatest 
theory  ^^"^  attention  and  its  most  important  development.  Here  it 
is  familiar  to  us  under  the  name  of  Intuitionism,  and  the 
real  founder  of  Intuitionism  was  Bishop  Butler  in  his 
famous  '  Sermons.'  Butler's  problem  came  to  him  from 
his  predecessors  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Hobbes, 
by  his  theory  of  the  artificial  and  conventional  char- 
acter of  moral  laws,  by  his  resolution  of  *'  nature "  into 
custom  and  contract,  had  given  rise  to  several  attempts 
to  prove  the  directly  rational  and  natural  character  of 


these  laws.  The  mathematical  moralists,  Cud  worth  and 
Clarke,  had  sought  to  prove  the  "  eternal  fitness "  of 
moral  distinctiotis,  their  "  immutable  and  eternal "  nature, 
their  mathematical  necessity,  their  utter  rationality.  For 
them,  as  for  the  Stoics,  morality  was  part  of  the  "  nature 
of  things,"  and  the  bad  was  synonymous  with  the  absurd 
or  irrational.  Shaftesbury  and  Hutcheson,  again,  had 
contended  for  an  immediate  and  unerring  perception  of 
moral  distinctions,  a  "  moral  sense "  of  the  beauty  and 
deformity  of  actions.  Butler,  following  on  the  whole  the 
lead  of  the  latter  school,  seeks  to  bring  philosophy  back 
to  earth,  and  to  find  in  the  peculiar  nature  and  constitu- 
tion of  man  the  soil  of  all  moral  distinctions.  In  the 
little  State  of  Mansoul,  however,  Butler  finds,  as  Plato 
had  already  found,  a  principle  which  draws  its  right  to 
rule  from  its  community  with  the  central  principle  of 
all  things. 

The  sum  and  substance  of  morality  being  contained  in 
the  maxim  "Follow  nature,"  the  business  of  Ethics  is  to 
determine  the  true  meaning  of  "  human  nature."  In  the 
determination  of  this,  Butler  uses  to  fine  purpose  Plato's 
figure  of  the  State.  A  "  system,  economy,  or  constitution," 
is  "  a  one  or  a  whole,  made  of  several  parts,"  in  such  wise 
that  "  the  several  parts,  even  considered  as  a  whole,  do 
not  complete  the  idea,  unless,  in  the  notion  of  a  whole, 
you  include  the  relations  and  respects  which  those  parts 
have  to  each  other."  Kow,  when  we  consider  the  various 
elements  of  human  nature,  we  find  that  the  most  import- 
ant relation  which  they  sustain  to  each  other  is  precisely 
that  relation  which  is  most  important  in  the  civil  economy 
— viz.,  the  relation  of  authority  or  right  to  rule.     This 


=i 


176 


THE   MORAL    IDEAL. 


difference  in  authority, "  not  being  a  difference  in  strength 
or  degree,"  Butler  calls  "a  difference  in  nature  and  in 
kind."     The  supreme  place  in  the  hierarchy  of  natural 
principles  belongs  of  right  to  the  rational  or  reflective ;  it 
is  theirs  to  govern  the  unreflective,  immediate,  impulsive 
principles  or  "  propensions."     The  chief  of  the  reflective 
principles  is  Conscience.     "  There  is  a  principle  of  reflec- 
tion in  men,  by  which  they  distinguish  between,  approve 
and  disapprove,  their  own  actions.    We  are  plainly  con- 
stituted such  sort  of  creatures  as  to  reflect  upon  our  own 
nature.     The  mind  can  take  a  view  of  what  passes  within 
itself,  its  propensions,  aversions,  passions,  affections,  as 
respecting  such  objects,  and  in  such  degrees ;  and  of  the 
several  actions  consequent  thereupon.     In  this  survey  it 
approves  of  one,  disapproves  of  another,  and  towards  a 
third  is  affected  in  neither  of  these  ways,  but  is  quite 
indifferent.     This  principle  in  man,  by  which  he  approves 
or  disapproves  his  heart,  temper,  and  actions,  is  conscience." 
Authority  is  "  a  constituent  part  of  this  reflex  approbation" 
—it  is  "  implied  in  the  very  idea  of  reflex  approbation  ; " 
"you  cannot  form  a  notion  of  this  faculty,  conscience, 
without  taking  in  judgment,  direction,  superintendency : 
...  to  preside  and  govern,  from  the  very  economy  and 
constitution  of  man,  belongs  to  it." 

"As  the  idea  of  a  civil  constitution  implies  in  it  united 
stren<^th,  various  subordinations  under  one  direction,  that 
of  the  supreme  authority,  the  different  strength  of  each 
particular  member  of  the  society  not  coming  into  the 
idea;  whereas,  if  you  leave  out  the  subordination,  the 
union,  and  the  one  direction,  you  destroy  and  lose  it.  So 
reason,  several  appetites,  passions,  and  affections,  prevailing 


RIGORISM. 


177 


in  different  degrees  of  strength,  is  not  that  idea  or  notion 
of  human  nature ;  but  that  nature  consists  in  these  several 
principles  considered  as  having  a  natural  respect  to  each 
other,  in  the  several  passions  being  naturally  subordinate 
to  the  one  superior  principle  of  reflection  or  conscience. 
Every  bias,  instinct,  propension  within,  is  a  real  part  of 
our  nature,  but  not  the  whole :  add  to  these  the  superior 
faculty,  whose  office  it  is  to  adjust,  manage,  and  preside 
over  them,  and  take  in  this  its  natural  superiority,  and 
you  complete  the  idea  of  human  nature.  And  as  in  civil 
government  the  constitution  is  broken  in  upon  and  vio- 
lated by  power  and  strength  prevailing  over  authority  ;  so 
the  constitution  of  man  is  broken  in  upon  and  violated  by 
the  lower  faculties  or  principles  within  prevailing  over 
that  which  is  in  its  nature  supreme  over  them  all." 
"Natural"  action  is,  therefore,  action  proportionate  to 
the  nature  of  man  as  a  whole,  as  a  constitution  or  econ- 
omy ;  or  it  is  action  prescribed  by  Conscience,  as  the  su- 
preme regulative  principle  of  the  human  constitution. 

The  approval  or  disapproval  of  this  Conscience,  which 
makes  man  "  in  the  strictest  and  most  proper  sense  a  law 
unto  himself,"  is  immediate  or  intuitive,  and  unerring. 
It  "pronounces  determinately  some  actions  to  be  in 
themselves  just,  right,  good ;  others  to  be  in  themselves 
evil,  wrong,  unjust."  "  Let  any  plain  honest  man,  before 
he  engages  in  any  course  of  action,  ask  himself.  Is  this  I 
am  going  about  right,  or  is  it  wrong  ?  is  it  good,  or  is  it 
evil  ?  I  do  not  in  the  least  doubt  but  that  this  question 
would  be  answered  agreeably  to  truth  and  virtue  by 
almost  any  fair  man  in  almost  any  circumstances." 

Butler  recognises  a  second  principle  in  human  nature, 

M 


178 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


179 


which,  since  it  also  is  reflective,  has  an  equally  authori- 
tative rank  with  Conscience— namely,  "  cool  "  or  "  reason- 
able  Self-love."     Action  in  the  line  of  Self-love   is   as 
"natural"  as    action   in   the   line   of    Conscience.      "If 
passion  prevails  over  self-love,  the  consequent  action  is 
unnatural ;  but  if  self-love  prevail  over  passion,  the  action 
is  natural.      It  is  manifest  that   self-love   is  in  human 
nature  a  superior  principle  to  passion.     This  may  be  con- 
tradicted without  violating  that  nature;  but  the  former 
cannot.     So  that,  if   we  will   act  conformably  to  man's 
nature,  reasonable  self-love  must  govern."     The  sphere  of 
this  second  regulative  principle  is  that  of  Prudence — a 
part  of  the  total  sphere  of  Virtue,  which  is  the  empire  of 
Conscience.     "  It  should  seem  that  a  due  concern  about 
our  own  interest  or  happiness,  and  a  reasonable  endeavour 
to  secure  and  promote  it,  which  is,  I  think,  very  much 
the  meaning  of  the  word  prudence,  in  our  language, — it 
should  seem  that  this  is  virtue,  and  the   contrary  be- 
haviour faulty  and  blameable ;  since,  in  the  calmest  way 
of  reflection,  we  approve  of  the  first  and  condemn  the 
other  conduct,  both  in  ourselves  and  others."     The  ap- 
proval is  as  immediate  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 
"  The  faculty  within  us,  which  is  the  judge  of  actions, 
approves  of  prudent  actions  and  disapproves  imprudent 
ones ;  I  say  prudent  and  imprudent  actions,  as  such,  and 
considered  distinctly  from  the  happiness  or  misery  which 
they  occasion."    This  principle  of  self-love  "  is  indeed  by 
no  means  the  religious,  or  even  moral,  institution  of  life  ; " 
but  "  prudence  is  a  species  of  virtue,  and  folly  of  vice." 
As  guides  of  conduct,  "Conscience  and  self-love,  if  we 
understand  our  true  happiness,  always  lead  us  the  same 


way — for  the  most  part  in  this  world,  but  entirely  and  in 
every  instance  if  we  take  in  the  future,  and  the  whole ; 
this  being  implied  in  the  notion  of  a  good  and  perfect 
administration  of  things." 

Under  these  two  regulative  principles  comes  the  entire 
impulsive  nature,  which  may  be  summarised  in  two  main 
divisions — the  selfish  and  the  benevolent,  or,  as  we  should 
say,  the  egoistic  and  the  altruistic.  "  Mankind  has  vari- 
ous instincts  and  principles  of  action,  as  brute  creatures 
have  —  some  leading  most  directly  and  immediately  to 
the  good  of  the  community,  and  some  most  directly  to 
private  good."  The  latter  may  collectively  be  termed 
"passionate  or  sensual  Selfishness,"  the  former  (passion- 
ate) Benevolence.  Self-love,  as  "  cool "  or  "  settled  "  in  its 
temper,  and  general  in  its  range,  is  distinguished  as  well 
from  Selfishness  as  from  Benevolence,  as  well  from  pas- 
sionate and  "particular"  regard  for  self  as  from  such 
passionate  and  "  particular  "  regard  for  others.  It  follows 
that  virtue  consists  neither  in  self-interest  nor  in  dis- 
interestedness ;  "  the  goodness  or  badness  of  actions  does 
not  arise  from  hence,  that  the  epithet,  interested  or  dis- 
interested, may  be  applied  to  them  any  more  than  any 
other  indifferent  epithet."  Hence,  particularly,  utility  is 
not  the  ground  of  virtue.  We  judge  actions  to  be  good 
or  bad,  "  not  from  their  being  attended  with  present  or 
future  pleasure  or  pain,  but  from  their  heing  what  they 
are — viz.,  what  becomes  such  creatures  as  we  are,  what 
the  state  of  the  case  requires,  or  the  contrary."  We  are 
"  constituted  so  as  to  condemn  falsehood,  unprovoked 
violence,  injustice,  and  to  approve  of  benevolence  to  some 
preferably  to   others,   abstracted    from    all    consideration 


ii 


'  I 
'  1 


180 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


181 


Criticism 
of  Butler's 
theory. 


which  conduct  is  likeliest  to  produce  an  overbalance  of 
happiness  or  misery."  Butler  can  conceive  "no  more 
terrible  mistake  "  than  that  "  the  whole  of  virtue  consists 
in  promoting  the  happiness  of  mankind,  and  the  whole  of 
vice  in  doing  what  they  foresee,  or  might  foresee,  is  likely 
to  produce  an  overbalance  of  unhappiness."  Yet  the  only 
final  justification  or  explanation  of  virtue  is  its  reduction 
to  self-interest.  "Let  it  be  allowed,  though  virtue  or 
moral  rectitude  does  indeed  consist  in  affection  to  and 
pursuit  of  what  is  right  and  good,  as  such ;  yet,  that  when 
we  sit  down  in  a  cool  hour,  we  can  neither  justify  to  our- 
selves this  or  any  other  pursuit,  till  we  are  convinced  that 
it  will  be  for  our  happiness,  or  at  least  not  contrary  to  it." 

8.  We  thus  find  in  Butler  several  lines  of  thought 
which  it  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  harmonise 
with  one  another.  He  seems  to  be  almost  equally  im- 
pressed by  the  interested  and  the  disinterested  sides  of 
conduct,  but  to  be  more  fully  persuaded  of  the  importance 
of  its  self-regarding  than  of  that  of  its  benevolent  side. 
Virtue  is  not  synonymous  with  Benevolence,  but  in  a 
sense  it  is  synonymous  with  Self-love.  The  latter  is  a 
reflective  and  reasonable  principle  of  life ;  prudence  and 
virtue  are  co-ordinate,  if  not  coincident.  In  spite  of  the 
authority  of  Conscience,  and  the  intrinsic  quality  of  that 
rightness  which  it  approves,  Butler's  morality  is  not  dis- 
interested; its  raison  d'etre  is  the  individual  happiness 
to  which  it  leads.  The  "  approval  "  or  "  disapproval  "  of 
Conscience  is  immediate  and  direct,  independent  of  the 
consequences  to  which  the  action  leads ;  but  the  logical 
basis  of  this  approval  or  disapproval  is  the  bearing  of  the 


action  upon  the  agent's  happiness  in  the  present  and  in 
the  future.  Though  the  approval  of  Conscience  is  im- 
mediate, and  not  the  result  of  calculation,  yet  the  course 
approved  is  always  that  of  Self-interest.  The  authority 
of  Conscience  is,  therefore,  after  all,  not  original,  but 
secondary,  derived  from  Self-interest.  Butler's  Conscience 
is  in  itself  a  merely  formal  principle ;  and  when  he  gives 
it  content,  that  content  is  the  content  of  Self-love. 

Failing  such  an  identification  of  Virtue  with  Prudence, 
of  Conscience  with  Self-love,  we  have  (1)  no  explana- 
tion of  morality,  no  theory  of  virtue,  but  a  mere  psycho- 
logy of  the  moral  life.  And  this  is,  in  general,  Butler's 
position.  He  is  willing,  in  the  main,  to  rest  in  the  im- 
mediate and  authoritative  approval  of  Conscience,  without 
investigating  the  object  of  its  approval  or  the  basis  of 
its  authority.  Conscience  is  the  regulative  faculty  in 
human  nature,  and  virtue  is  that  conduct  which  it  dic- 
tates as  fitting  or  natural  to  man.  Even  as  a  psycho- 
logical statement,  we  must  dissent  from  Butler's  artificial 
divorce  between  "  act "  and  "  consequence."  Even  psy- 
chologically, the  action  is  not  separated  from  its  con- 
sequences, and  judged  to  be  "  in  itself  "  right  or  wrong ; 
the  consequences  reveal  the  nature  of  the  action,  and  are 
themselves  part  of  it.  But  we  must  advance  beyond  the 
psychological  to  the  philosophical,  or  strictly  ethical  view ; 
we  must  investigate  the  luhy  of  Conscience's  approval  and 
disapproval,  as  also  its  right  to  approve  and  disapprove. 

(2)  His  refusal  to  identify  Conscience  with  Self-love 
leads  Butler  to  rest  in  an  irreducible  dualism  of  the 
spheres  governed  by  these  two  principles  respectively — 
the  spheres  of  Virtue  and  Prudence.     For  Conscience  and 


182 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


183 


Self-love  are  at  least  co-ordinate  in  authority ;  "  the  epi- 
curean rule  of  life,"  though  not  identical  with  the  "moral," 
has  its  place  alongside  the  latter.  Eegard  for  one's  "  in- 
terest "  or  "  good  on  the  whole  "  is  as  legitimate  as  regard 
for  the  "  right."  This  is  Butler's  way  of  modifying  the 
rigorism  of  his  rational  standpoint ;  he  recognises  the 
'•'  reasonableness  "  of  Self-love  as  a  principle  of  conduct. 
But  it  is  impossible  thus  to  adjust  the  rival  claims  of 
Virtue  and  Prudence ;  and  Butler,  when  pressed,  falls 
back,  as  we  have  seen,  upon  the  old  hedonistic  device 
of  resolving  the  virtuous  into  the  prudential  self.  This 
dilemma  is  the  result  of  his  inadequate  conception  of 
virtue.  The  "  right "  must  contain  the  "  good,"  virtue 
prudence.  Or  rather,  the  true  Moral  Ideal  must  be  the 
supreme  Good,  or  simply  the  Good — that  Good  which 
not  only  transcends  all  other  goods  but  explains  their 
goodness,  and  in  undivided  loyalty  to  which  the  moral 
being  finds  his  perfect  satisfaction.  The  true  moral  in- 
terest must  be  supreme,  embracing  and  transcending, 
including  and  interpreting,  all  the  interests  of  life.  The 
mere  suggestion  of  a  "  self  "  whose  satisfaction  or  interest 
is  still  to  seek  after  the  moral  task  is  done,  is  proof 
sufficient  that  that  task  has  been  inadequately  conceived. 
The  only  way  to  make  the  various  circles  of  our  life's 
activities  concentric,  is  by  discovering  their  common 
centre. 

Finally  (3)  Butler's  difficulty  in  reconciling  Benevolence 
and  Self-love  arises  from  the  same  fundamental  defect. 
If  the  self  does  not  find  its  perfect  satisfaction  in  the 
life  of  Virtue,  neither,  of  course,  will  other  selves  find 
theirs  ;  and  it  is  only  because  the  self  is  thus  inadequately 


conceived  that  the  conflict  of  individual  interests  arises. 
It  is  the  prudential,  not  the  virtuous  self  which  finds  it 
necessary  to  compete  with  others  for  the  "  goods  "  of  life, 
because  its  **  interest "  and  theirs  are  mutually  exclusive. 
If  we  would  find  deliverance  from  Hobbes's  "war  of 
every  man  against  every  man,"  we  must  learn  to  see  how 
deeply  ^mnatural  that  warfare  is.  *  Again  we  must  insist 
that,  as  the  Good  of  human  life  is  not  conceived  aright 
until  it  is  seen  to  be  a  Good  so  complete  that  the  indi- 
vidual has  no  "  private  "  interests  of  his  own  apart  from 
his  participation  in  it,  so  it  is  not  conceived  aright  until  it 
is  seen  to  be  a  Good  so  comprehensive  that  all  individuals 
alike  shall  find  in  it  their  common  good.^ 

9.  Contemporary  Eigorism  retains  essentially  the  form  ^^^^^^^ 
in  which  Butler  stereotyped  the  theory.    That  his  psycho-  its^^^J^r- 
lo^ical  standpoint  is  still  the  standpoint  of  the  school  is  from  But- 
indicated   by  the  term  which  it  adopts   to  characterise 
its  view— viz.,  Intuitionism.     That  moral  principles  are 
directly  and  immediately  recognised,  that  they  are  self- 
evident  or  axiomatic  truths  of  reason,  and  that  Conscience 
is  the  faculty  of  such  immediate  moral  insight,— all  this 
is  held  in  common  by  Butler  and  by  the  Scottish  School  of 
"  Common-Sense."    The  absolute  authoritativeness  of  these 
"  first  principles  "  of  morality,  and  therefore  of  Conscience 
as  the  faculty  which  reveals  them,  is  also  common  ground. 
But  the  Conscience  of  contemporary  Intuitionism  has  a 
much  narrower  range  than  Butler's  Conscience.    The  latter 

1  Such  a  conception  is  perhaps  suggested  to  us  by  Butler  himself  in  his 
principle  of  the  "  Love  of  God,"  which  seems  to  transcend  both  Conscience 
and  Self-love.     Cf.  T.  B.  Kilpatrick,  Introduction  to  Butler's  *  Sermons.' 


184 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


185 


was  a  faculty  of  particular  moral  judgments  or  "  percep- 
tions," which  told  the  plain  man  unerringly  and  imme- 
diately the  course  of  present  duty  "  in  almost  any  circum- 
stances." The  contemporary  Conscience  is  found  unequal 
to  this  task.  The  historical  sense  has  developed  greatly 
since  Butler  wrote,  and  has  forced  us  to  acknowledge  that 
the  "  human  nature  "  which  seemed  to  him  a  constant  and 
unchanging  quantity  is  a  growth,  and,  with  it,  its  "  virtue  " 
and  "  vice,"  that  the  content  of  our  particular  moral 
judgments  varies  much  with  time  and  place  and  cir- 
cumstance, that  these  judgments  are,  in  a  very  real  sense, 
empirical  judgments.  The  Intuitionist  has  accordingly 
been  compelled  either  to  acknowledge  that  Conscience, 
in  Butler's  sense  of  the  term,  is  educated  by  experi- 
ence, and  is  dependent  upon  such  "  empirical  instruction  " 
for  all  the  concreteness  of  its  dicta,  or  so  to  narrow 
the  meaning  of  the  term  Conscience  as  to  make  it  the 
unerring  faculty  of  general  or  "  first "  principles  merely, 
and  to  attribute  to  the  very  fallible  and  empirically 
minded  Judgment  the  application  of  these  immutable 
principles  to  the  variety  of  particular  circumstances  and 
cases  as  they  arise.  The  latter  alternative  is  the  one 
chosen.  The  historical  element  in  morality  is  carefully 
sifted  from  the  unhistorical,  the  temporal  and  changeable 
manifestation  from  the  eternal  and  unchanging  essence. 
Morality  is  reduced  to  ''  simple  "  or  ultimate  ideas — such 
as  Justice,  Temperance,  Truthfulness ;  these,  it  is  claimed, 
have  no  history,  and  their  a  priori  origin  is  the  source  of 
their  absolute  validity. 
Its  defects.  The  current  intuitional  doctrine  is  thus  forced  to  sacri- 
fice all  the  concreteness  and  particularity  which  belonged 


to  Butler's  theory  of  Conscience.     The  uneducated  Con- 
science, the  "  original "  faculty,  provides  us  with  no  more 
than  the  merest  generalities  or  abstractions,  which  must 
be  made  concrete  before  they  have  any  real  significance. 
Moral  life  consists  of  particulars,  of  "  situations,"  of  def- 
inite  circumstances   and    individual    occasions;    and   an 
indeterminate  or  vague    morality  is  no  morality  at  all. 
Intuitionism,  with  its  fixed   and   absolute   principles  of 
conduct,  can  find  no  place  in  its  ethical  scheme  for  the 
actual  variation  in  moral  opinion.     What,  for  example, 
is  the  "  equality  "  demanded  by  the  principle  of  Justice  ? 
Very  different  answers  would  be  given  to  this  question 
by  different  epochs  of  human  civilisation,  and  by  different 
communities  in  the  same  epoch.     Make  the  conception 
concrete,  and  it  is  found  to  be  a  changing  one;   allow 
for  the   variation,  and   the   general   formula  becomes  a 
mere  abstraction.     It  is  the  particulars  and  details  of 
the  moral  life  that  are  real ;  our  general  moral  conceptions 
or  "  principles "  derive  their  reality  from  the  particulars 
of  which  they  are  the  "  abstract "  or  transcript. 

Besides,  the  intuitive  character  of  moral  principles  may 
be  accounted  for,  as  just  suggested,  by  an  empirical  theory 
of  morality.  It  may  be  shown  that  these  principles  are 
intuitive  in  the  sense  of  being  instinctive.  To  the  indi- 
vidual in  any  age  and  country,  the  morality  of  that  age 
and  country  (and  even  the  particular  modification  of  it  in 
the  atmosphere  of  which  he  has  grown  up)  may  be  said  to 
present  itself  as  absolutely  and  immediately  obligatory. 
The  moral,  like  the  intellectual  consciousness  of  the 
nation  and  of  the  society  to  which  he  belongs  is,  some- 
how, focused  and  crystallised  in  the  individual,  who  is 


186 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


their  "  child."  One  might  go  further,  and  say  that  the 
experience  and  education  of  the  race  itself  is,  in  a  sense, 
possessed  by  the  individual,  that  the  real  education  of 
Conscience  is  on  a  wider  scale  than  the  individual,  and  is 
what  Lessing  called  an  "  education  of  the  human  race."  The 
individual,  as  the  child  of  the  race,  "  the  heir  of  all  the 
ages  "  of  its  experience,  accepts  his  inheritance,  whether 
moral  or  intellectual,  for  the  most  part  unquestioningly, 
and  is  only  too  content  to  "  stand  in  the  old  paths."  The 
absoluteness  and  originality  of  moral  principles  are  there- 
fore, or  may  be,  merely  subjective.  Objectively,  morality 
is  constantly  changing ;  and  even  the  moral  consciousness 
is  found,  when  we  regard  it  from  without,  to  be  changing 
too.  The  change  in  the  one  is  correlative  with  the  change 
in  the  other.  All  that  is  left,  independent  of  experience, 
is  a  vague  moral  susceptibility  or  potentiality,  which  ex- 
perience alone  can  determine  and  define. 

In  two  respects,  Intuitionism  fails  to  satisfy  the  require- 
ments of  an  ethical  philosophy.  (1)  It  is  a  mere  psychology 
of  the  moral  consciousness.  We  may  admit  that  moral 
intuitions  are  facts  (though  they  have  a  history  and  are  not 
original  or  simple),  that  they  represent  the  subjective  side 
of  the  What  of  morality.  But  the  philosophical  question 
lies  behind  such  facts ;  it  is  the  question  of  the  Why  of 
the  facts.  Certain  moral  principles,  like  certain  intellectual 
principles,  may  be  to  us  necessary  and  irresistible;  but 
these  characteristics  do  not,  as  such,  tell  us  anything  of 
the  objective  basis  of  the  principles  in  question,  anything 
of  the  nature  of  morality  itself.  They  may  be  character- 
istic of  our  moral  consciousness,  and  yet  not  be  fit  to  stand 
as  the  criteria  of  moral  value.     The  question  which  Hume 


RIGORISM. 


187 


raised  with  regard  to  the  intellectual  "  intuitions  "  must 
also  be  raised  with  regard  to  the  moral  intuitions.  Hume 
did  not  deny  the  "necessity"  of  the  causal  principle; 
but  he  sought  to  resolve  that  necessity  into  its  causes, 
showing  that  it  might  be  entirely  subjective, — a  feeling 
which  was  the  product  of  experience  and  custom,  and 
had  no  objective  validity.  So  the  ethical  question  of  the 
validity  of  moral  principles, — of  their  objective  basis  and 
explanation,  is  not  answered  by  a  psychological  theory  of 
their  "  necessity  "  or  "  universality."  The  real  question  of 
Ethics  is  not,  as  Intuitionists  have  stated,  and  answered  it : 
How  do  we  come  to  hioiu  moral  distinctions  ?  but,  What 
are  these  distinctions?  What  is  the  Moral  Ideal— the 
single  criterion  which  shall  yield  all  such  distinctions  ? 

(2)  Intuitionism  is  a  mere  re-statement,  in  philosophical 
terms,  of  the  ordinary  moral  consciousness.  The  several 
moral  principles  are  conceived,  as  they  are  conceived  by 
unreflective  thought,  as  all  equally  absolute ;  they  are  not 
reduced  to  the  unity  of  a  system.  Short  of  such  unity, 
however,  philosophy  cannot  rest.  Further,  what  is  "  axio- 
matic "  to  Common-Sense  is  not  axiomatic  to  philosophical 
reflection.  The  only  axiom  of  ethical  philosophy  would 
be  the  rationality  of  the  moral  life ;  but  it  is  for  Ethics 
to  exhibit  its  rationale.  This  philosophical  articulation  of 
the  vague  practical  sense  of  mankind  is  possible  only 
through  a  definition  of  the  ethical  End.  But,  taken  even 
at  its  own  profession,  as  a  philosophy  of "  Common-Sense," 
Intuitionism  is  easily  criticised.  For,  apart  from  its  im- 
plicit Utilitarianism,  Common-Sense  admits  exceptions  of 
a  large  kind  to  the  principles  of  conduct  which  it  recog- 
nises.    These  principles  are  not  to  it  more  than  high 


188 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


189 


generalisations,  which  have  to  be  modified,  temporarily  or 
permanently,  according  to  circumstances.  As  Professor 
Sidgwick  has  so  convincingly  shown,  "  the  doctrine  of 
Common-Sense  is  rather  a  rough  compromise  between  con- 
flicting lines  of  thought  than  capable  of  being  deduced  from 
a  clear  and  universally  accepted  principle."  ^  The  morality 
of  Common -sense  is  sufficiently  definite  for  "practical 
guidance  to  common  people  in  common  circumstances;" 
but  "  the  attempt  to  elevate  it  into  a  system  of  scientific 
Ethics  "  is  necessarily  a  failure.  To  fix  and  stereotype  its 
principles,  to  conceive  them  as  eternally  and  absolutely 
valid,  is  to  construct  a  Common-Sense  for  mankind  to 
suit  a  certain  theory  of  it,  rather  than  to  interpret  it 
impartially,  as  Intuitionism  professes  to  do. 

Yet  we  must  acknowledge  that  the  Intuitionists  have 
signalised  an  all-important  truth,  however  they  may  have 
misinterpreted  it.  There  is  an  absolute,  an  "  eternal  and 
immutable  "  element  in  morality.  The  fact  that  its  history 
is  a  history  of  progress,  and  not  of  mere  capricious  varia- 
tion—that there  is  an  Evolution,  a  definite  tendency,  to 
be  traced  in  the  ethical  process — proves  the  presence  and 
operation,  throughout  the  process,  of  such  an  element. 
But  that  element  lies  deeper  than  individual  moral  laws  or 
principles,  deeper  than  any  given  form  of  moral  practice ; 
for  these  are  always  changing.  It  is  nothing  less  than  the 
Moral  Ideal  itself.  In  virtue  of  the  absolute  claim  and 
authority  of  the  Ideal,  its  various  changing  expressions, 
the  several — so  diverse — paths  along  which,  in  different 
ages,  in  different  circumstances,  by  different  individuals, 
that  Ideal  can  be  reached  and  realised,  derive  a  claim  and 

1  *  Methods  of  Ethics,'  347  (3d  ed.) 


an  authority  as  absolute  as  that  of  the  Ideal  itself.  Their 
claim  is  its  claim,  their  authority  its  authority.  Nor  is 
the  individual's  moral  obligation  in  respect  of  these  laws  a 
whit  less  absolute  than  it  would  be  if  the  pathway  to  the 
Ideal  were  fixed  and  unchangeable.  This  is  the  one  path 
for  him,  here  and  now ;  and  in  practice  the  question  does 
not  arise :  "  And  what  shall  this  or  that  man  do,  in  this  or 
that  age,  or  country,  or  set  of  circumstances  ? "  but  only, 
"  What  shall  /.do,  in  mine  V  But  if  we  are  to  find  the 
theoretic  basis  of  this  absolute  and  eternal  obligation  of 
morality,  we  must  seek  it  not  in  the  several  moral  laws 
themselves,  but  in  the  moral  Ideal  which  underlies  and 
oives  meaning  to  them  all.  The  Intuitional  school  can 
hardly  be  said  to  have  done  more  than,  by  its  insistence 
upon  the  Ought  of  moral  life,  upon  the  absolute  signifi- 
cance of  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  to  have 
emphasised  the  fact  that  there  is  such  an  absolute  moral 
End  or  Ideal.  The  definition  of  that  Ideal  still  remains  as 
the  task  of  ethical  philosophy. 

10    What,  then,  in  sum,  is  the  service  of  Eigorism  to  The  service 
'  of  Rigor- 

ethical  theory  ?  ■  kStheor^' 

(1)  It  signalises  the  fundamentally  important  truth  '"^^ 
that  Eeason,  rather  than  Sensibility,  is  the  regulative 
principle  in  the  life  of  a  rational  being.  Only,  it  tends 
towards  the  extreme  of  saying  that  reason  is  the  constitu- 
tive as  well  as  the  regulative  principle,  or  that  the  life  of 
man,  as  a  rational  being,  must  be  a  life  of  pure  reason ; 
which  is  to  miss  the  nerve  of  the  moral  life,  and  to  identify 
it  with  the  intellectual,  to  make  man  a  Thinker  only,  and 
not  a  Doer.     This,  the  characteristic  error  of  Greek  phil- 


190 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


RIGORISM. 


191 


osophy,  has  reappeared  in  modern  Eigorism,  and  notably 
in  the  ethics  of  Kant. 

(2)  To  the  realistic  interpretation  of  Hedonism,  Eigor- 
ism opposes  an  idealistic  view  of  morality.  It  signalises 
the  notion  of  Duty  or  Obligation,  the  distinction  between 
the  Ought  and  the  Is;  or,  in  short,  it  asserts  that  the 
ethical  End  is,  in  its  very  nature,  an  Ideal,  demanding 
realisation.  It  reaches,  however,  only  the  Form  of  the 
Moral  Ideal.  The  content  must  come  from  sensibility, 
and  for  Sensibility,  Eigorism,  as  the  Ethics  of  Eeason,  has 
no  proper  place. 

(3)  The  assertion,  which  is  repeated  again  and  again 
in  the  Eigorist  school,  of  the  dignity  and  independence 
of  man  as  a  rational  being,  is  a  sublime  and  momentous 
truth.  For  man  rises  out  of  nature,  and  has  to  assert 
his  infinite  rational  superiority  to  nature.  Goodness 
means  the  subjugation  of  nature  to  spirit.  The  good 
life  is  the  rational  life;  the  life  of  mere  nature  is,  in  a 
rational  being,  irrational.  And  it  may  well  seem,  in  the 
great  crises  of  the  struggle,  as  if  all  else  but  the  rational 
self  were  unworthy  to  live,  and  must  absolutely  die.  Yet 
nature  also  has  its  rights ;  and  the  moral  life  is  not  so 
entirely  stern  and  joyless  as  Stoic  and  Kantian  moralists 
would  say.  Even  he  who  was  called,  by  reason  of  the 
greatness  of  his  moral  task,  "a  man  of  sorrows  and  ac- 
quainted with  grief,"  had  yet  "his  joy" — the  deep  and 
abiding  joy  that  comes  of  moral  victory  ;  and,  according  to 
the  measure  of  his  faithfulness,  each  combatant  may  share 
that  joy. 

11.  In  Eigorism,  therefore,  no  more  than  in  Hedonism, 


do  we  find  the  final  ethical  theory.     Eeason  must  indeed  Transition 

to  JlillClcB" 

be  the  governing  power  in  the  party  warfare  of  the  soul,  monism. 
Without  reason's  insight,  the  moral  life  were  impossible ; 
a  rational  self-mastery  is  the  very  kernel  of  morality. 
But  such  a  true  self-mastery  is  not  effected  by  the  with- 
drawal of  Eeason  from  the  fray,  by  its  retreat  within 
the  sanctuary  of  peaceful  thought  and  undisturbed  philo- 
sophic meditation.  This  would  be  mere  Quietism.  Life 
is  not  thought  or  contemplation,  but  strenuous  activity ; 
and  the  weapons  of  life's  warfare  are  forged  in  the  furnace 
of  Sensibility,  if  the  hand  that  wields  them  must  be  guided 
by  the  eye  of  Thought.  We  must  either  fight  with  these 
weapons,  or  give  up  the  fight;  for  other  weapons  there 
are  none  in  all  the  armoury  of  human  nature. 

The  inevitable  confession  of  the  abstractness  of  a  pure 
Ethic  of  Eeason  led,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  more  mod- 
erate form  of  Eigorism,  with  its  more  or  less  grudging 
acknowledgment  of  the  rights  of  Sensibility.  The  result 
was  a  transition  from  what  we  might  call  an  abstract  and 
ne^^ative  ethical  Monism  to  a  concrete  and  positive  ethical 
Dualism.  The  hedonistic  principle,  or  the  prudential 
maxim  of  life,  since  it  can  neither  be  eliminated  nor 
annexed,  is  co-ordinated  with  the  moral,  rational,  or 
virtuous  principle.  The  only  possibility  of  unifying  these 
two  principles  would  seem  to  be  by  reducing  Virtue  to 
Prudence ;  but  this  course  would  mean,  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  theory,  the  disappearance  of  Virtue,  as  the 
reverse  course  had  already  been  found  to  mean  the  dis- 
appearance of  Prudence.  The  impossibility  of  a  purely 
rational  ethic  is,  however,  most  convincingly  displayed  in 
the  case  of  the  extreme  Eigorism  of  Kant.     His  final 


192 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


193 


appeal  to  Sensibility  in  the  form  of  "  practical  interest," 
or  "  reverence,"  is  closely  parallel  to  the  appeal  to  Keason 
on  the  part  of  Hedonists  like  Mill  and  Professor  Sidgwick. 
As  the  latter,  hedonists  or  advocates  of  Sensibility  though 
they  are,  are  forced  in  the  end  to  hold  a  brief  for  Reason  ; 
so  is  Kant,  the  arch- rationalist  of  modern  Ethics,  com- 
pelled at  last  to  admit  to  his  councils  the  despised  Sensi- 
bility. The  lesson  of  both  events  surely  is,  that  neither 
in  Hedonism  nor  in  Rigorism,  neither  in  the  Ethics  of 
Sensibility  nor  in  the  Ethics  of  Reason,  but  in  Eudse- 
monism,  or  the  Ethics  of  that  total  human  Personality 
which  contains,  as  elements,  both  Reason  and  Sensibility, 
is  the  full  truth  to  be  found. 


CHAPTER    III. 

EUDiEMONISM,   OR   THE   ETHICS   OF   PERSONALITY. 

1.  The  preceding  discussion  has  revealed  a  fundamental  J^^^jj^^^^' 
dualism  in  ethical  theory,  corresponding  to  a  fundamental  jsm.    its 
dualism  in  the  nature  and  life  of  man.     The  task  which  expression, 
now  meets  us  is  the  solution  of  the  problem  raised  by  this 
dualism  in  ethical  theory  and  practice ;  but,  before  attempt- 
ing the  execution  of  that  task,  it  will  be  well  to  bring 
the  two  sides  of  the  dualism  into  clear  relief. 

Looking  first  at  the  theoretical  side  of  the  question,  we 
have  found  the  two  comprehensive  types  of  ethical  theory 
to  be  the  Ethics  of  Reason  and  the  Ethics  of  Sensibilit"\ 
On  the  one  hand,  it  has  been  felt,  from  the  dawn  of  ethical 
reflection,  that  the  true  life  of  man  must  be  a  rational  life. 
Reason,  it  is  recognised,  is  the  differentiating  attribute 
of  man,  distinguishing  him  from  the  animal  or  merely 
sentient  being.  At  first,  it  is  true,  no  cleft  was  perceived 
between  the  life  of  Reason  and  the  life  of  Sensibility.  Even 
to  Socrates,  the  proper  life  of  man  is  one  of  sentient  satis- 
faction, although  it  is  essentially  a  rational  life,  the  appro- 
priate life  of  a  rational  being.  The  Socratic  life  is  a  self- 
examined  and  a  self-guided  life  ;  the  measure  of  sentient 

N 


194 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


EUD^MONISM. 


195 


* 


satisfaction  is  set  by  the  reason  which  is  the  distinguish- 
in^  attribute  of  man;  the  criteria  of  goodness  are  self- 
mastery  and  self -consistency.  The  place  of  reason  in  the 
ethics  of  Socrates  becomes  evident  in  his  central  doc- 
trine of  the  supreme  ethical  importance  of  knowledge,  of 
the  identity  of  knowledge  and  virtue,  or  human  excellence. 
The  wise  man,  or  the  man  who,  in  the  entire  conduct  of 
his  life,  follows  the  voice  of  reason,  is  the  man  who  has 
attained  the  chief  human  Good.  By  Plato  and  Aristotle, 
more  expHcitly  and  absolutely  than  by  Socrates,  the  secret 
of  .the  good  life  is  found  in  reason,  and  the  life  of  sensi- 
bility is  condemned  as  "  irrational "  (aXoycarLKov).  Plato, 
in  his  doctrine  of  the  Ovfio^,  recognises  a  secondary  value 
in  sensibility,  but  only  in  so  far  as  it  ''  shares  in  the 
rational  principle,"  and  is  Reason's  "watch-dog."  Aris- 
totle also  recognises  a  higher  and  a  lower  virtue,  a  virtue 
which  is  the  excellence  of  a  purely  rational  being  whose 
life  is  the  life  of  reason  itself,  and  a  virtue  which  is  the 
excellence  of  a  compound  nature  like  man's  —  partly 
rational,  partly  irrational  or  sentient.  But  both  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  following  in  the  footsteps  of  their  common 
master,  only  going  much  farther  than  he  had  gone,  find  the 
ideal  Good  in  the  exclusive  life  of  reason,  the  philosophic 
or  contemplative  life.  To  both,  this  is  the  Divine  life, 
some  participation  in  which  is  vouchsafed  to  man  even 
now,  and  in  the  aspiration  after  which,  as  the  eternal  Ideal, 
he  must  seek  to  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  the 
lower  world  of  sensibility.  The  Stoics  did  but  accentuate 
this  ascetic  and  ideal  note,  so  prominent  yet  so  surprising 
in  the  moral  reflection  of  the  Greeks,  this  "  divine  discon- 
tent "  of  the  human  spirit  with  its  lot  in  the  present  and 


the  sensuous,  this  craving  for  a  rational  and  abiding  good 
behind  the  shows  of  sense  and  time,  this  sublime  inde- 
pendence of  all  that  suffers  shock  and  change  in  mortal 
life.  The  Eationalism  and  Asceticism  of  modern  ethics 
are  little  more  than  the  echo  of  this  ancient  thought,  that 
the  only  life  worthy  of  a  rational  being  is  the  life  of  reason 
itself.  It  is  this  thought  that  we  have  found  working  in 
the  "  mathematical "  moralists,  who  seek  to  demonstrate 
the  "absurdity"  of  the  evil  life;  in  their  successors  of  the 
Intuitionist  school,  who  maintain  the  "  self-evidence  "  of 
moral  law  and  the  "  self-contradiction "  of  moral  evil ; 
and  in  Kant,  the  greatest  of  rationalists,  to  whom  the 
"good  will"  is  the  will  that  takes  as  the  maxim  of  its 
choice  a  principle  fit  for  law  universal  in  a  kingdom  of 
pure  reason,  and  in  whose  eyes  the  slightest  alloy  of  sen- 
sibility would  corrupt  the  pure  gold  of  the  life  of  duty. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  life  of  Sensibility  has  never  been 
without  its  defenders,  advocates  who  have  shown  no  less 
enthusiasm  on  its  behalf  than  their  opponents  have  shown 
on  behalf  of  Eeason.  We  have  just  noted  the  hedonistic 
element  in  the  ethical  teaching  of  Socrates.  The  im- 
portance of  this  element,  neglected  in  the  main  by  Plato,, 
was  signalised  anew  by  Aristotle,  who  not  only  regarded 
the  life  of  virtue  as  essentially  a  pleasant  life,  but  saw  in 
pleasure  the  very  bloom  and  crown  of  goodness  or  well- 
being.  The  Epicureans  among  the  Greeks  and  Eomans, 
and  the  Hedonists  among  ourselves,  have  reversed  the 
Aristotelian  relation,  and  have  made  Reason  the  servant 
of  reeling,  a  minister  to  be  consulted  always,  and  listened 
to  with  respect  and  confidence,  but  still  a  minister  only 
and  not  a  ruler  in  the  "  party  conflict  of  the  soul."    While 


196 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


EUDJEMONISM. 


197 


P 


Its  prac- 
tical ex- 
pression. 


the  interpretation  of  "  Happiness "  has  varied  so  much 
that   it  might  well   have  been  the  watchword  of  both 
schools,   the   hedonistic   interpretation   of    it    is    always 
in  terms  of  Pleasure,  or  of  the  life  of  Sensibility.     But 
if   we   would   find    the    perfectly   consistent   Hedonism, 
the  thorough-going  Ethics  of  Sensibility  (corresponding  to 
the  Stoic  and  Kantian  Ethics  of  Eeason),  we  must  go 
back  to  the  precursors  of  the  Epicurean  school,  the  early 
Cyrenaics.     So  complete  is  their  confidence  in  Sensibility, 
that  they  surrender  Keason  to  it,  or  rather  resolve  Eeason 
into  it.     Sensationalists  in  intellectual  theory,  in  ethics 
they  are  Hedonists.     Since  momentary  feeling  is  the  only 
moral  reality,  we  must,  if  we  would  enjoy  the  Good  of 
life,  surrender  ourselves  to  the  pleasure  of  the  moments 
as  they  pass. 

2.  This  theoretical  antinomy  has  its  counterpart  in  the 

practical  life  of  man,  and  in  the  characteristic  attitudes 

and  moods  of  different  ages,  countries,  and  individuals  in 

view  of  the  actual  business  of  life.     Moral  theory  is  the 

reflection  of  moral  practice,  and  the  interest  of  the  high 

debate  that  has  raged  through  all  these  centuries  between 

the  rival  ethical  schools  has  a  practical  and  not  a  merely 

scientific,  still  less  scholastic  interest.     Party-spirit  runs 

high  on  the  question  of  the  Summum  Bonum,  for  every 

man  has  a  stake  in  its  settlement,  the  stake  of  his  own 

nature  and  destiny;   and  the  side  which  each  takes,  in 

practice  if  not  in  theory,  will  be  found  to  be  the  exponent 

of  that  nature,  and  the  prophecy  of  that  destiny.     Let 

us  look,  then,  for  a  moment  at  the  practical  expression 

of  this  fundamental  ethical  dualism. 


It  is  not  only  in  the  philosophic  schools,  but  in  actual 
life,  that  we  find  the  two  moral  types — the  Stoic  and  the 
Cyrenaic ;  in  ^11  ages  we  can  discern  the  rigorist,  ascetic, 
strenuous  temper  of  life  from  the  impulsive,  spontaneous, 
luxurious — the  Puritan  from  the  Cavalier  spirit,  the  Man 
of  Pteason,  cool  and  hard,  from  the  Man  of  Feeling,  soft 
and  sensuous.     We  might  perhaps  call  the  two  types  the 
Idealistic  and  the  Piealistic.     In  historical  epochs,  and  in 
whole  peoples,  as  well  as  in  the  individual  life,  the  dis- 
tinction  is    illustrated.      The    Greeks    were    a    sensuous 
people,  but  gradually  the  reason  found  the  life  of  sen- 
sibihty  unsatisfying,  and  the  Greek  spirit  took  its  flight 
to  the  supersensible  and   ideal  —  to  the  world  of  pure 
reason.     The  result  is  found  in  Platonism,  Stoicism,  and 
Neo-Platonism.     This  mystic  yearning   after  a  satisfac- 
tion   which    the    sensible    world    will    not    yield,    this 
"home-sickness"   of   a   rational   being,   is   at    the   heart 
of    Medieval    Christianity,   with   its    monastic  life   and 
its  anxious  denial  of  the  flesh  for  the  sake  of  the  spirit's 
life.     The  Byronic  temper  represents  the  other  extreme. 
Man  resjards  himself  as  a  creature  of  sensibility,  of  im- 
pulses,  of  enthusiasms  and  exaltations,  of  weariness  and 
depression,— a  kind  of  mirror  that  reflects  the  changes 
of  his  life,  or  a  high-strung  instrument  that  vibrates  in 
quick  responsiveness  to  them  all.     The  Eealism  of  con- 
temporary fiction  represents  the  same  one-sided  assertion 
of  the  rights  of  Sensibility,  and  the  luxuriousness  and 
material   comfort    of   our   modern    life,   the   "practical" 
utilitarian  spirit  that  threatens  ideal  aims,  minister  to 
the  same  result.     But  the  two  forces  are  always  present 
and  in  conflict. 


198 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


EUDiEMONISM. 


199 


Attempts 
at  recon- 
ciliation. 


3.  Each  of  these  sides  of  our  nature  has  its  rights,  just 
because  both  are  sides  of  our  nature,  and,  as  Aristotle  said, 
"life"  and  "virtue"  must  be  in  terms  of  "nature."  In 
actual  life,  we  find  either  the  sacrifice  of  one  to  the  other, 
or  a  rough  and  ready,  more  or  less  successful,  compromise 
between  their  rival  interests.  The  task  of  ethical  philoso- 
phy, as  it  is  the  task  of  the  moral  life  itself,  is  the  recon- 
ciliation of  these  apparently  conflicting  claims— the  full 
recognition  both  of  the  rights  of  Keason  and  the  rights  of 
Sensibility,  and  their  reduction,  if  possible,  to  the  unity  of 
•a  common  life  governed  by  a  single  central  principle. 
This  task  of  reconciliation  was  attempted  long  ago  by 
Plato,  who,  after  condemning  sensibility  as  "  irrational," 
yet  described  virtue  as  essentially  a  "harmony"  of  all 
man's  powers,— a  complete  life  in  which  every  part  of  the 
nature,  the  lowest  as  well  as  the  highest,  should  find  its 
due  scope  and  exercise,  all  in  subjection  to  the  supreme  au- 
thority of  reason.  Aristotle,  too,  though  he  reasserted  the 
Platonic  distinction  of  the  "rational"  and  "irrational," 
conceived  of  man's  well-being  as  a  full-orbed  life,  which, 
while  it  was  "  in  accordance  with  right  reason,"  embraced 
sensibility  as  well.  The  same  kind  of  reconciliation  has 
been  attempted  in  modern  times,  only  in  view  of  a  deeper 
realisation  of  the  width  of  the  cleft  than  the  Greek  con- 
sciousness had  attained.  Hegel,  in  particular,  has  sought, 
in  the  ethical  as  in  the  metaphysical  sphere,  to  correct 
the  abstractness  and  formalism  of  the  Kantian  theory,  by 
vindicating  the  rights  of  sensibility,  and  harmonising  them 
with  the  rights  of  reason,  which  Kant  had  so  exclusively 
maintained.  As,  in  the  intellectual  sphere,  Hegel  attempts 
to  vindicate  the  rights  of  sensation  and  to  demonstrate  the 


essential  identity  of  sensation   and  thought,  so,  in  the 
ethical  sphere,  he  seeks  to  prove  the  essential  rationality 
of  the  life  of  sensibility.     In  both  spheres  he  offers  a  con- 
crete content  for  the  abstract  and  barren  form  of   the 
Kantian  theory,  for  he  holds  that  in  both  spheres  "  the 
real   is   the   rational."     This   reconciliation  has  been  so 
clearly  and  impressively  set  forth  by  the  late  Professor 
Green  in  his  '  Prolegomena  to  Ethics'  that  it  is  needless  to 
reproduce  it  here.     But,  in  order  that  the  reconciliation 
may  be  successful,  the  conflict  must  first  be  felt  in  all  its 
intensity;   and  if  the  ancient  moralists  tended  to  exag- 
gerate the  sharpness  of  the  dualism,  the  modern  disciples 
of  Hegel  may  perhaps  be  said  to  underestimate  it.    In 
that  life  of  Sensibility  which  the  ethical  rationalists  had 
condemned  as  the  "  irrational,"  the  Hegelian  idealist  sees 
the  image  and  superscription  of  Reason.     Are  not  both 
interpretations  a  trifle  hasty  and  impatient  ?     Were  it  not 
better  to  follow  the  workings  of  the  moral  life  itself,  and 
see  there  how  the  antithesis  is  pressed  until  it  yields  the 
higher  synthesis  ?    If,  even  in  the  intellectual  life  of  man, 
there  is  labour,  the  "labour  of  the  notion,"  still  more  so  is 
there  in  the  moral  life ;  and  an  adequate  ethic  must  take 
account  of,  and  interpret,  this  labour.     The  defect  of  the 
Hegelian  interpretation  of  morality  is,  that  it  is  not  faith- 
ful enough  to  the  Hegelian  method  of  dialectical  progress 
through  negation  to  higher  affirmation.    The  "  Everlasting 
Nay"  must  be  pressed  to  the  last,  before  we  can  hear 
the  "Everlasting  Yea"  of  the  moral  life. 


The  solu- 


4.  In  Christianity  we  find  the  antithesis  at  its  sharpest,  tjon  of 
It  is  just  because  Christianity  recognises,  and  does  full  tianity. 


200 


THE   MOEAL   IDEAL. 


justice  to,  both  sides  of  our  nature,  and  because  it  asserts 
with  a  unique  emphasis  the  conflict  between  them,  that 
its  interpretation  of  human  life  has  been  felt  to  be  most 
adequate.  The  Greek  ideal  was  one  of  Moderation  or  the 
Mean,  a  "  measured  "  sensuous  life.  Christianity  widens 
the  breach  between  the  spirit  and  nature,  between  the 
mind  and  the  flesh,  widens  it  that  at  last  it  may  be 
overcome.  The  rights  of  the  spirit  are  emphasised  to  the 
negation  (in  comparison  with  them)  of  the  rights  of  the 
flesh  The  flesh  must  be  crucifiech  the  natural  man  must 
die,  the  old  man  must  be  ^ut  off.  The  result  is  such  a 
struggle  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit,  between  the 
-  two^men "  in  each  man,  that  the  victory  seems  uncer- 
tain, and  the  bitter  cry  is  wrung  from  the  weary  wrestling 
spirit :  "  0  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me 
from  the  body  of  this  death  ?  "  But  this  widening  of  the 
moral  breach  is  the  necessary  first  step  in  the  life  of  good- 
ness. The  ascetic  note  is  the  primary  and  fundamental 
one,  self-sacrifice  must  precede  and  make  possible  self- 
fulfilment,  the  moral  life  is  mediated  by  death.  For  man 
rises  out  of  nature,  and  must  assert  his  superiority  to 
nature,  as  a  spiritual  or  rational  being.  That  it  may 
guide  and  master  sensibility,  reason  must  first  assert  itself 
to  the  negation  of  sensibility.  The  true  self  is  rational 
and  spiritual,  and  that  it  may  live,  the  lower,  fleshly,  sen- 
suous self  must  die.  Only  through  this  "  strait  gate  "  is 
the  entrance  to  the  pathway  of  the  spirit's  life. 

But  Christianity  is  no  merely  ascetic  or  mystic  system. 
It  does  breed  in  its  disciples  a  profound  sense  of  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  actual  life,  it  does  lead  to  the  dis- 
paragement of  nature  and  sensibility ;  but  it  does  so  just 


EUD^.MONISM. 


201 


because  it  inspires  in  them  the  conviction  of  an  ideal  of 
which  the  actual  for  ever  falls  short,  and  shows  man  how- 
much  more  and  greater  he  is  than  nature.  The  sunny 
gladness  of  the  Pagan  spirit  had  to  be  darkened  by  the 
shadow  of  this  prophetic  discontent ;  but  a  new  gladness 
came  with  Christianity.  There  can  be  no  literal  "re- 
naissance" or  re-birth  of  Paganism.  The  spiritual  his- 
tory of  man  does  not  repeat  itself,  there  is  no  return  to 
former  stages  of  moral  experience.  The  human  spirit  has 
been  born  anew,  and  has  learned  in  Christianity  lessons 
about  its  own  dignity  and  task  and  destiny  which  it  can 
never  more  unlearn.  And  in  view  of  the  fundamental 
lesson  of  Christianity,  of  the  infinite,  eternal,  and  divine 
worth  of  the  human  spirit,  it  may  well  seem  as  if  all  else 
were  unworthy  to  live,  and  must  absolutely  die.  The 
good  Hfe  is  a  rational  life,  a  life  in  which  reason,  the 
same  in  God  and  man,  must  guide  and  be  master.  Yet 
nature  has  its  rights,  though  they  are  not  independent  of 
the  supreme  rights  of  the  spirit ;  and  Christianity  recog- 
nises the  rights  of  nature.  For  each  there  is  a  crown  of 
joy,  though  the  way  to  it  lies  through  the  pain  and  toil 
and  death  of  the  Cross.  As  in  the  victorious  march  of 
the  Eoman  arms,  the  vanquished  territory  of  "  nature  "  is 
not  ravaged  and  laid  waste  ;  the  conquering  reason  an- 
nexes nature ;  the  kingdom  of .  nature  and  "  the  flesh  " 
becomes  the  kingdom  of  the  rational  spirit.  The  whole 
man  is  redeemed  from  evil  to  goodness;  the  "old"  be- 
comes "  new."  There  is  a  re-birth  of  the  entire  being ; 
nothing  finally  dies,  it  dies  only  to  "rise  again"  to  its 
true  life.  All  lives  in  the  new,  transfigured,  spiritual  life  ; 
all  becomes  organic  to  the  one  central  principle,  an  ele- 


202 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


ment  in  the  one  total  life.  The  "  world  "  becomes  part  of 
the  "  kingdom  of  God."  All  other,  separate  and  rival,  in- 
terests die,  because  they  are  all  alike  superseded,  tran- 
scended, and  incorporated  in  this  one  interest.  Nay,  the 
individual  self,  in  so  far  as  it  insists  upon  its  separate  and 
exclusive  life,  upon  its  own  peculiar  and  private  interests, 
must  die.  The  "world"  is  indeed  just  the  sphere  of 
this  narrow  selfish  self,  and  both  together  must  be  super- 
seded. "  It  is  no  more  I  that  live."  But  the  narrow 
and  selfish  self  dies  that  the  larger  and  unselfish  self 
may  live.      Only  he  that  so  loseth  his  life  shall  truly 

find  it. 

All  this  is  symbolised  in  Christianity  in  the  incarna- 
tion, death,  and  resurrection  of  its  Founder.  The  idea  of 
Incarnation— the  root-idea  of  Christianity — is  a  splendid 
and  thoroughgoing  protest  against  the  ascetic  view  of 
Matter  as  in  its  very  essence  evil, — a  mere  prison-house  of 
the  soul,  to  be  escaped  from  by  the  aspiring  spirit,  some- 
thing between  which  and  God  there  can  be  no  contact  or 
communion  any  more  than  between  light  and  darkness. 
Christianity  sees  in  matter  the  very  vehicle  of  the  divine 
revelation,  the  transparent  medium  of  the  spiritual  life, 
the  great  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  virtue.  "The 
Word  was  made  Flesh."  'O  A6709  crapf  kyivero.  Nor, 
in  word  or  life,  does  Jesus  suggest  any  aloofness  of  spirit 
from  the  things  of  this  world,  any  withdrawal  from  its 
affairs,  as  dangerous  to  the  soul's  best  life,  any  superi- 
ority to  its  most  ordinary  avocations.  "  The  Son  of  Man 
came  eating  and  drinking,"  sharing  man's  common  life, 
and  realising  the  divine  ideal  in  it.  Even  so,  by  his 
lowly  and  willing  acceptance  of  human  life  in  the  entirety 


li 


EUD^MONISM. 


203 


of  its  actual  relations,  did  he  transfigure  that  life,  by  turn- 
ing to  divine  account  all  its  uses  and  occasions,  by  making 
of  each  an  element  in  the  life  of  goodness.  This  trans- 
figuration of  human  life  was  no  single  incident  or  crisis 
in  the  career  of  Jesus  ;  men  did  not  always  see  it,  but  his 
life  itself  was  one  continuous  Transfiguration.  Nay,  the 
life  of  goodness  always  is  such  a  transfiguration ;  every- 
thing is  hallowed  when  it  becomes  the  vehicle  of  the 
divine  life  in  man,  nothing  is  any  more  common  or  un- 
clean. Yet  the  persistent  holding  to  the  ideal  good  of 
this  earthly  life  means  suffering  and  death ;  only  so  can 
the  earthly  nature  become  the  medium  of  the  divine. 
There  are  always  the  two  possibilities  for  man,  the 
lower  and  the  higher;  and  that  the  higher  may  be 
realised,  the  lower  must  be  denied.  "From  flesh  into 
spirit  man  grows;"  and  the  flesh  has  to  die,  that  the 
spirit  may  live.  The  eager,  strenuous  spirit  has  to  crucify 
the  easy,  yielding  flesh.  But  the  good  man  dies  only  to 
live  again ;  his  death  is  no  defeat,  it  is  perfect  victory — 
victory  signed  and  sealed.  From  such  a  death  there 
must  needs  be  a  glorious  resurrection  to  that  new  life 
which  has  been  purchased  by  the  death  of  the  old. 


5.  The  conclusion  to  which  we  are  forced  by  the  facts  The  eth- 
ical prob- 

of  the  moral  life  is,  that  the  true  and  adequate  interpreta-  lem :  the 

.  ,         meaning  of 

tion  of  it  must  lie,  not  in  the  exclusive  assertion  ot  either  seif-reai- 
side  of  the  dualism,  but  in  the  discovery  of  the  relation  of  ^^^  ^^^' 
the  two  sides  to  one  another.     In  order  to  the  statement 
of  this  relation,  we  must  have  recourse  to  a  fundamental 
principle  of  unity.     In  other  words,  we  are  led  to  consider 
the  meanins:  of  Self-realisation. 


204 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


EUD^MONISM. 


205 


,. 


II 


i 


■M 


As  the  watchword  of  Hedonism  may  be  said  to  be  Self- 
satisfaction  or  Self-gratification,  and  as  that  of  Eigorism  is 
apt  to  be  Self-sacrifice  or  Self-denial,  so  the  watchword  of 
Eiidiemonism  may  be  said  to  be  Self-realisation  or  Self- 
fulfilment.     It  seems,  however,  almost  a  truism  to  say 
that  the  End  of  human  life  is  Self-realisation.     The  aim 
and  object  of  every  living  being,  of  the  mere  animal  as 
well  as  of  man— nay,  of  the  thing  as  well  as  the  animal 
and  the  person— may  be  described  as  Self-preservation 
and  Self-development,  or  in  the  single  term  Self-realisa- 
tion.     In   a    universe    in   which    to   "exist"   means   to 
"  struggle,"    self  -  assertion,   perseverare   in   esse  sito,  may 
be  called  the  universal  law  of   being.     Moreover,  every 
ethical  theory  might  claim  the  term  "  Self-realisation,"  as 
each  might  claim  the  term  "  Happiness."     The  question 
is,  What°is  the  "  Self"  ?  or  Which  Self  is  to  be  realised  ? 
Hedonism  answers,  the  sentient  self ;  Eigorism,  the  ra- 
tional self ;  Eud^monism,  the  total  self,  rational  and  sen- 
tient.   The  ethical  problem  being  to  define  Self-realisation, 
is,  therefore,  in  its  ultimate  form  the  definition  of  Self- 
hood  or  Personality.     When   we   wish   to   describe   the 
characteristic  and  peculiar  End  of  human  life,  we  must 
either  use  a  more  specific  term  than  Self-realisation,  or  we 
must  explain  the  meaning  of  human  Self-realisation  by 
defining  the  Self  which  is  to  be  realised.     And  since  man 
alone  is,  in  the  proper  sense,  a  "  self"  or  "  person,"  we  are 
led  to  ask.  What  is  it  that  constitutes  his  personality,  and 
distinguishes  man  as  a  "  person  "  from  the  so-called  animal 
or  impersonal  self  ?     The  basis  of  his  nature  being  animal, 
how  is   it  "  lifted   up  into  the  higher  sphere  of   human 
personality  ? 


6.  Self-hood  cannot  consist  in  mere  Individuality ;  for 

the  animal,  as  well  as  the  man,  is  an  individual  self— a 

self   that   asserts   itself    against   other    individuals,   that 

excludes  these  latter  from  its  life,  and  struggles  with  them 

for  the  means  of  its  own  satisfaction.     Man  is  a  self  in 

this  animal  sense  of  self -hood ;  he  is  a  being  of  impulse,  a 

subject  of  direct  and  immediate  wants  and  instincts  which 

demand  their  satisfaction,  and  prompt  him  to  struggle 

with  other  individuals  for  the  means  of  such  satisfaction. 

These  impulsive  forces  spring  up  in  man  as  spontaneously 

as  in  the  animal,  their  "  push  and  pull "  is  as  real  in  the 

one  case  as  in  the  other.     And  if  might  were  right,  these 

forces  in  their  total  workings  would  constitute  the  man, 

as  they  seem  to  constitute  the  animal ;  and  the  resultant 

of  their  operations  would  be  the  only  goal  of  the  former, 

as  of  the  latter  life.     But  might  is  not  right  in  human 

life;  it  is  this  distinction  that  constitutes  morality.     As 

the   Greeks   said,  man    is    called    upon    to   "measure" 

his   impulses — in   Temperance   or   Moderation   lies    the 

path  to  his  self-fulfilment ;  and  the  "  measure  "  of  impulse 

is  found  in  "  right  reason."     That  is  to  say,  man,  as  a 

rational  being,  is  called  upon  to  bring  impulse  under  the 

law  of  the  rational  self ;  man  is  a  rational  animal.     Butler 

and  Aristotle  ai^ree  in  their  definition  of  "  human  nature  " 

and  in  their  view  of  human  life.     In  Aristotle's  opinion 

that  which  differentiates  man  from  other  beings  is  his 

possession  of  reason,  and  the  true  human  life  is  a  life 

"  accordinc?  to  ri^^ht  reason."    The  distinctive  characteristic 

of  man,  according  to  Butler,  is  that  he  has  the  power  of 

"  reflecting "  upon  the  immediate  animal  impulses  which 

sway  him,  and  of  viewing  them,  one  and  all,  in  relation  to  a 


Definition 
of  Person- 
ality: the 
Individual 
and  the 
Person. 


i 


206 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


EUD^MONISM. 


207 


permanent  and  total  good.  In  this  critical  and  judicial 
"  view "  of  the  impulsive  and  sentient  life,  consists  that 
Conscience  which  distinguishes  man  from  the  animal  crea- 
tion, and  opens  to  him  the  gates  of  the  moral  life,  which 
are  for  ever  closed  to  it. 

Tt  is  this  Self  -  consciousness,  this  power  of  turning 
back  upon  the  chameleon  -  like,  impulsive,  instinctive, 
sentient  or  individual  self,  and  gathering  up  all  the 
scattered  threads  of  its  life  in  the  single  skein  of  a 
rational  whole,  that  constitutes  the  true  Self -hood  of  man. 
This  higher  and  peculiarly  human  Self-hood  we  shall  call 
Personality,  as  distinguished  from  the  lower  or  animal 
self -hood  of  mere  Individuality;  and,  in  view  of  such 
a  definition  of  the  Self,  we  may  say  that  Self-realisation 
means  that  the  several  changing  desires,  instead  of  being 
allowed  to  pursue  their  several  ways,  and  to  seek  each  its 
own  good  or  satisfaction,  are  so  correlated  and  organised 
that  each  becomes  instrumental  to  the  fuller  and  truer  life 
of  the  rational  human  self.  This  power  of  rising  above 
the  impulse  of  the  moment,  and  of  viewing  it  in  the  light 
of  his  rational  self-hood ;  this  power  of  transcending  the 
entire  impulsive,  instinctive,  and  sentient  life,  and  of 
regarding  the  self  which  is  but  the  "  bundle  of  impulses  " 
as  the  servant  of  the  higher  rational  self,  is  what  makes 
man  (ethically)  man.  It  is  this  endowment  that  con- 
stitutes Will.  We  do  not  attribute  Will  to  the  animal, 
because,  so  far  as  we  know,  it  cannot,  as  we  can,  arrest  the 
stream  of  impulsive  tendency,  but  is  carried  off  on  the 
back  of  present  impulse.  That  is  a  life  "according  to 
nature  "  for  it ;  in  such  a  life  it  realises  the  only  "  self  "  it 
has  to  realise.     But  man,  as  we  have  seen,  can  take  the 


larger  view  of  reason,  and  can  act  in  the  light  of  that 
better  insight.  It  is  given  to  him  to  criticise  the  im- 
pulsive "  stream,"  to  arrest  and  change  its  course,  to  sub- 
due the  lower,  animal,  natural  self  to  the  higher,  human, 
rational  self ;  to  build  up  out  of  the  plastic  raw  material 
of  sensibility,  out  of  the  data  of  mere  native  disposition, 
acted  upon  by  and  reacting  upon  circumstances  or  "  envi- 
ronment," a  stable,  rational  character.  We  do  not  attri- 
bute "character"  to  the  mere  animal;  its  life  is  a  life 
of  natural  and  immediate  sensibility,  unchecked  by  any 
tnought  of  life's  meaning  as  a  whole.  In  its  life  there  is 
no  conscious  unity  or  totality.  But  for  man,  the  rational 
animal,  the  natural  life  of  obedience  to  immediate  sensi- 
bility is  not  a  "  life  according  to  nature,"  according  to  his 
higher  and  ''proper"  nature  as  man.  All  his  natural 
tendencies  to  activity,  all  the  surging  clamant  life  of 
natural  sensibility,  has  to  be  criticised,  judged,  approved 
or  condemned,  accepted  or  rejected,  by  the  higher  insight 
of  reason  which  enables  him  to  see  his  life  in  its  meaning 
as  a  whole.  His  life  is  not  a  mere  struggle  of  natural 
tendencies  ;  he  is  the  critic,  as  well  as  the  subject,  of  such 
promptings ;  and  it  is  as  critic  of  his  own  nature  that  he 
is  master  of  his  own  destiny.  Just  in  so  far  as  he  makes 
impulse  his  minister,  as  he  is  master  of  impulse,  or  is 
mastered  and  defeated  by  it,  does  man  succeed  or  fail  in 
the  task  of  Self-realisation. 


7.  Thus    interpreted,   the   business   of    Self-realisation  Theratiou- 

.       .         ^ .  al  or  per- 

might  be  described  as  a  work  of  moral  synthesis,  bmce  sonaiSeif: 
the  time  of  Kant,  Epistemology  has  found  in  rational  Actual  and 
synthesis  the  fundamental  principle  of  knowledge.    Green 


208 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


functions 
compared. 


has  elaborated  the  parallel,  in  this  respect,  between  know- 
ledge  and  morality,  and  shown   us  the  activity  of   the 
ratFonal  Ego  at  the  heart  of  both.     Professor  Laurie,  in 
his  conception  of  "  Will-reason,"  has  also  emphasised  the 
identity  of  the  process  in  both  cases.     The  task  of  the 
rational  Ego  is,  in  the  moral  reference,  the  organisation 
of    Sensibility,   as,   in    the    intellectual    case,  it   is   the 
organisation  of  Sensation.     Impulses  and  feelings  must, 
like  sensations,  be  ''  challenged  "  by  the  Self,  criticised, 
"measured,"  and  co-ordinated  or  assigned  their  place  in 
the  Ego's  single  life.     The  insight  of  reason  is  needed 
for  this  work  of  organisation  or  synthesis,  as  Plato  and 
Aristotle  saw.      As,  in  the  construction  of  the  percept 
out  of  the  sensation,  the   Ego   recognises,   discriminates 
between,  selects  from,  and  combines  the  sensations  pre- 
sented, and  thus  forms  out  of  them  an  object  of  know- 
ledge;   so,  in  the  construction   of   the  End  out   of  the 
impulse,  we   find   the   same   recognition,   discrimination, 
selection,  and  organisation  of  the  crude  data  of   sensi- 
bility.    Only  through  this  synthesis  of  the  manifold  of 
sensibility,  through  this  reduction  of  its  several  elements 
to  the  "  common  measure  "  of  a  single  rational  life,  can 
the  Ego  constitute  for  itself  moral  ends,  and  a  supreme 
End  or  Ideal  of  life. 

Following  the  cue  of  the  epistemological  parallel,  we 
find  that  Hedonism  in  Ethics  rests  upon  the  same  kind 
of  psychological  "atomism"  as  that  which  forms  the 
basis  of  the  sensationalistic  or  empirical  theory  of  know- 
ledge. Hedonism  rests  upon  the  "  atomism  "  of  the  sep- 
arate individual  feeling  or  impulse,  as  Sensationalism 
rests    upon   the  "  atomism "   of   the   separate   individual 


EUD^MONISM. 


209 


sensation.  A  thorough  -  going  empiricism,  whether  in 
ethics  or  in  epistemology,  fails  to  see  the  need  of  rational 
synthesis  or  ."system."  The  empiricist  seems  to  think 
that  the  "  atoms  "  of  sensation  or  of  sensibility  will  77iass 
themselves,  he  endows  them  with  a  kind  of  dynamical 
property.  And  it  is  true  that  sensibility,  like  sensation, 
already  contains  within  itself  a  kind  of  synthesis,  that 
there  is  a  certain  continuity  in  the  sentient  as  in  the 
sensational  life ;  that  each  is  to  be  regarded  rather  as  a 
"  stream  "  than  as  the  several  links  of  a  "  chain  "  not  yet 
in  existence.  But  this  elementary  synthesis  must  be 
supplemented  in  either  case  by  the  higher  and  completer 
synthesis  of  reason,  if  we  would  pass  from  the  level  of  the 
animal  to  the  higher  level  of  human  life.  Feeling  gives 
a  "  fringe  "  or  margin,  narrower  or  broader,  but  "  system  " 
comes  with  Eeason. 

The  answer  of  Kant  to  epistemological  Empiricism  may 
therefore  be  extended  to  ethical  Empiricism.  Psychology 
itself  suggests  the  Kantian  answer,  and  helps  us  to  cor- 
rect it.  Feelings  and  impulses  are  not,  any  more  than 
sensations,  separate  and  atomic,  but,  even  in  their  own 
nature,  they  form  parts  in  the  continuous  "stream"  of 
the  mental  life.  But  the  life  of  feeling  and  impulse,  as  a 
whole,  is  "  loose  "  or  "  separate,"  and  has  to  be  "  apper- 
ceived,"  i  or  made  an  element  in  the  life  of  the  rational 
Ego.  The  dualism  of  reason  and  sensibility  is  very  real. 
The  life  of  the  spirit  is  never  smooth  and  easy,  like  the 
life  of  nature  ;  there  is  always  opposition,  an  intractable 
''matter"  to  be  subdued  to  spiritual  "form."  And  the 
labour  and  effort  of  the  spirit  is  greater,  the  "matter" 

^  In  the  Kantian  sense  of  that  term. 

0 


210 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


is  more  intractable,  and  the  struggle  with  it  harder,  in  the 
moral  than  in  the  intellectual  life. 


The  sen- 
tient or 


8.  But  while  we  thus  extend  to  the  ethical  life  the 
indtviduai  transcendental  or  Kantian  answer  to  empiricism,  we  must 
''^^-  be  careful  not  to  go  to  the  other  extreme,  and  lose  the 

truth  of  Hedonism.     Ethical,  like  intellectual  empiricism, 
contains  an  important  truth.     Adopting  Kant's  termino- 
logy, we  may  say  that  ethical  Personality  constitutes  itself 
through  the  subsumption  of  the  empirical  or  sentient  Ego, 
by  the  transcendental  or  rational  Ego.     Neither  in  the 
life  of  the  empirical  Ego  alone,  as  the  Hedonists  maintain, 
nor  in  that  of  the  transcendental  Ego  alone,  as  the  ethical 
Eationalists  maintain,  but  in  the  relation  of  the  one  to 
the  other,  or  in  the  "  synthetic  unity  of  Apperception," 
does  morality  consist.      We  must  conserve  the  real,  as 
well  as  the  ideal,  side  of  the  moral  life.     The  error  of 
transcendentalism  —  whether   Kantian   or   Hegelian  — is 
that  it  sacrifices  the  real  (ethically  as  ontologically)  to 
the  ideal,  that  it  sublimates  the  life  of  feeling  into  the 
life  of  reason.     This  is  precisely  the  error  of  the  ancient 
Greek  moralists,  the  error  of  sacrificing  the  moral  life, 
with  all  its  concrete  reality  of  living  throbbing  human 
sensibility,  on  the  altar  of  intellect  or  cool  philosophic 
reason.     We  must  insist  that  the  Person  is  always  an  In- 
dividual ;  his  personality  acts  upon,  and  constitutes  itself 
out  of,  his  individuality.      The  doctrine  of  the  abstract 
universal,— of  pure  rational  self -hood,  or  form  without 
content,  is  no  less  inadequate  than  the  doctrine  of  the 
abstract  particular,— of  mere  individual  sensibility,  of  con- 
tent without  form.     In  the  moral  as  in  the  intellectual 


EUD^MONISM. 


211 


sphere,  the  "  real "  is  concrete,  the  universal  in  the  par- 
ticular, such  a  unity  of  both  as  means  the  absolute  sacri- 
fice of  neither.  Such  a  "  moral  Eealism  "  at  once  recog- 
nises the  truth  of  Idealism  (Kantian  or  Hegelian)  and 
supplements  it  by  a  more  adequate  interpretation  of 
ethical  fact.  For,  morally  as  intellectually,  "the  indi- 
vidual alone  is  the  real." 


son. 


9.  The  key  to  the  ethical  harmony,  then,  is:  Be  a  "BeaPer- 
Person  —  constitute,  out  of  your  natural  Individuality, 
the  true  or  ideal  self  of  Personality.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  life  of  man  and  that  of  Nature  is,  that  while 
nature  is  under  law,  man  has  to  subject  himself  to  law. 
The  law  or  order  is,  in  both  cases,  the  expression  of 
reason;  but  the  reason  which  shows  itself  in  nature  as 
Force,  shows  itself  in  man  as  Will.  Will  is  the  power 
of  self-government  which  belongs  to  a  rational  being,  or, 
as  Kant  said,  "practical  reason."  For,  while  the  entire 
life  of  man  is  permeated  by  feeling,  and  may  even  be 
regarded  as  the  outcome  and  expression  of  feeling,  the 
Law  of  that  life,  the  Law  of  feeling  itself,  is  found 
not  in  feeling,  but  in  reason.  Feeling  must  become 
organic  to  reason,  the  life  of  the  former  must  become 
an  element  in  the  life  of  the  latter,  not  vice  versd.  For 
feelings  do  not  control  themselves,  as  Mill  said  the 
"higher"  control  the  "lower,"  and  as  Spencer  says 
the  "  re  -  representative  "  control  the  "representative," 
and  they  in  turn  the  "  presentative."  The  "  represen- 
tative" or  "higher"  feelings  have  not,  qud  feelings, 
any  authority  over,  or  superiority  to,  the  "  presentative  " 
or  **  lower."     It  is   the   rational   Self   which  interprets 


212 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


EUD^MONISM. 


213 


*< 


all  feelings  by  its  self  -  reference,  or  by  its  synthetic 
activity  upon  them,  and  which,  by  such  self-reference, 
imtkes  them  "higher"  and  "lower,"  assigns  to  each  its 

place  and  value. 

Here  we  find  the  true  "  Autonomy  "  of  the  moral  life. 
The  Law  of  his  life,  the  criterion  of  the  manner  and  the 
measure  of  the  exercise  of  each  impulse,  is  the  proper 
"  nature "  or  rational  Self-hood  of  the  man.     He  cannot, 
without  ceasing  to  be  man,  abjure  this  function  of  Self- 
legislation,  or  cease  to  demand  of  himself  a  life  which 
shall  be   the   fulfilment   of  his  true   and   characteristic 
nature   as  man.     Virtue   is   not  a  spontaneous  growth, 
still  less  an  original  endowment,  of  Nature.     Man  has  to 
constitute  liimsdf  a  moral  Person :  slowly  and  laboriously, 
out  of  the  raw  material  of  individual  feeling  and  impulse, 
he  has  to  raise  the  structure  of  ethical  manhood.     We 
have  seen  that,  even  in  the  animal  life,  there  is  an  organ- 
isation of  impulse ;  but  we  regard  it  as  the  result  of  in- 
stinct, because  it  is  not  self-planned  and  self-originated, 
as  in  man's  case,  who  can  say  "  A  whole  I  planned."    It  is 
the  privilege  and  dignity  of  a  rational  being  to  have  the 
ordering  or  systematising  of  impulse  in  his  own  hands, 
to  construct  for  himself  the  order  and  system  of  reason 
in  the  life  of  sensibility.     For,  as  Aristotle  truly  said, 
nature   gives   only   the   capacity,  and   the  capacity   she 
gives  is  rather  the  capacity  of   acquiring   the   capacity 
of  virtue,  than  the  capacity  of  virtue  itself.     The  best 
reward  of  virtue  is  the  capacity  of  a  higher  virtue ;  "  as 
it  is   by   playing   on   the   harp  that  men  become   good 
harpers,  so  it  is  by  performing  virtuous  acts  that  men 
become  virtuous,  and  as  at  a  race  it  is  not  they  who 


stand  and  watch,  but  they  who  run,  who  receive  the 
prize,"  so  is  the  life  of  virtue  rewarded  with  the  crown 
of  a  future  that  transcends  its  past. 

10.  But  the  course  of  true  virtue,  like  that  of  true  love,  "  Die  to 

live." 

never  did  run  smooth.  Its  path  is  strewn  with  obstacles,  MeaHing  of 
and  its  very  life  consists,  as  Fichte  perceived,  in  the  rifice."^^^* 
struggle  to  overcome  them.  The  subjection  of  the  indi- 
vidual, impulsive,  sentient  self  to  the  order  of  reason  is  a 
Herculean  task.  The  immensity,  the  infinity,  of  the  task 
is  not  indeed  to  be  misinterpreted,  as  if  sensibility  were  a 
surd  that  cannot  be  eliminated  from  the  moral  life.  Sen- 
sibility is  not  to  be  annihilated — in  that  case  the  moral 
task  would  be  an  impossible  and  futile  one — but  co- 
ordinated or  harmonised  with  the  rational  nature,  made 
the  vehicle  and  instrument  of  the  realisation  of  the  true 
or  rational  self.  But  this  co-ordination  is  also  a  sub- 
ordination ;  sensibility  must  obey,  not  govern.  Here  we 
find  the  relative  truth  of  Asceticism,  and  the  deeper  truth 
of  the  Christian  principle  of  Self-sacrifice.  The  higher  or 
personal  self  can  be  realised  only  through  the  death  of 
the  lower  or  individual  self,  as  lower  and  merely  indi- 
vidual. In  its  separateness  and  independence,  the  sentient 
self  must  die;  for  there  may  not  be  two  lives,  or  tv:o 
selves.  Individuality  must  become  an  element  in  the  life 
of  personality.  I  must  die,  as  an  individual  subject  of 
sensibility,  if  I  would  live  as  a  moral  person,  the  master 
of  sensibility.  I  must  crucify  the  "  flesh  "  (the  Pauline 
term  for  the  "natural,"  impulsive,  and  sentient  or  un- 
moralised  man),  if  I  would  live  the  life  of  the  spirit.  I 
must  lose  my  lower  life,  if  I  would  find  the  higher.    With 


II 


214 


THE   MORAL    IDEAL. 


EUD^MONISM. 


215 


I 


m 


the  Law  of  the  rational  spirit  comes  the  consciousness, 
and  the  fact,  of  sin  or  moral  evil— that  is,  of  subjection  to 
mere  animal  sensibility;  this  condemnation,  by  reason,  of 
the  life  that  is  not  brought  into  subjection  to  its  Law  is 
a  condemnation  unto  death.  But  as  the  life  of  the  lower 
is  the  grave  of  the  higher  self,  so  from  the  death  of 
the  lower  comes  forth,  in  resurrection  glory,  the  higher 
and  true  Self.  "  Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the 
ground  and  die,  it  abideth  alone  ;  but  if  it  die,  it  bringeth 
forth  much  fruit."  Each  selfish  impulse  (and  all  impulses, 
even  the  benevolent,  are  selfish,  in  the  sense  that  each 
seeks  "  its  own,"  and  disregards  all  other  claims)  must  be 
denied,  or  brought  under  the  Law  of  the  life  of  the  total 
rational  self.  The  "  Everlasting  Nay  "  of  such  self-sacri- 
fice precedes  and  makes  possible  the  "  Everlasting  Yea  "  of 
a  true  self-fulfilment.  The  false,  worthless,  particular, 
private,  separate  self  must  die,  if  the  true  self,  the  rational 

Personality,  is  to  live. 

I  have  said  that  this  struggle,  with  its  pain  and  death, 
precedes  the  joy  and  peace  of  the  higher  life.  But  the 
sequence  is  logical  rather  than  chronological ;  for  in  truth 
the  process  of  death  is  always  going  on,  simultaneously 
with  the  process  of  life,  or  rather  death  and  life  are  two 
constant  elements— negative  and  positive— in  the  life  of 
virtue  as  we  know  it.  Even  the  good  man  "  dies  daily," 
daily  crucifies  the  flesh  anew.  Daily  tlie  "  old  "  or  "  nat- 
ural man  "  is  being  "-  put  off,''  and  the  "  new  "  or  ''  spiritual 
man "  "  put  on."  There  is  a  daily  and  hourly  death  of 
nature,  and  a  daily  and  hourly  new  birth  and  resurrection 
of  the  spirit.  As  in  the  life  of  a  physical  organism,  disin- 
tegration mediates  a  higher  integration.     La  vie  c'est  la 


mort}  Always,  therefore,  there  is  pain ;  but  always  be- 
neath the  pain,  in  the  depths  of  the  moral  being,  there 
is  a  joy — stronger  and  more  steadfast  even  than  the  pain, 
in  the  assurance  that  "  old  things  are  passing  away,  and 
all  things  are  becoming  new."  For  "  the  inward  man  is 
being  renewed  day  by  day,"  and,  in  the  joy  of  that  renewal, 
all  the  "  pity  "  of  the  pain  and  sorrow  that  make  it  pos- 
sible sinks  out  of  heart  and  mind,  or  lends  but  a  deeper 
and  a  graver  note  to  the  joy  which  it  has  purchased  and 
made  possible.  So  ever  with  the  negative  goes  the  posi- 
tive side  of  the  ethical  life.  The  spirit  has  ever  more 
room  and  atmosphere,  and  its  life  becomes  richer  and 
fuller;  as  the  flesh  becomes  a  willing  instrument  in  its 
hands,  it  finds  continually  new  and  higher  ends  for  which 
to  use  it. 

And  the  goal  of  the  moral  life,  the  ideal  after  which  it 
strives,  is  a  spontaneity  and  freedom  and  "  naturalness  " 
like  that  of  the  life  of  original  impulse.  As  Aristotle  said, 
virtue  is  first  "  activity  "  (ivepyeca),  then  "  habit "  (ef ^9)  ; 
ivipjeca  leads  to  Bvva/jLi';,  the  originally  indefinite  poten- 
tiality— the  potentiality  of  either  vice  or  virtue,  becomes 
a  definite  capacity  for  virtue  in  the  established  character 
of  the  good  man.  This  "second  nature,"  which  makes 
virtue  so  far  easy,  is  virtue's  best  reward.  There  is  all  the 
difference  in  the  w^orld  between  the  mere  "rigorist"  or 
negatively  good  man,  who  thinks  out  his  conduct,  w^hose 
life  is  a  continual  repression,*  and  the  positively  good  man, 
who  knows  the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection,  whose 
goodness  seems  to  bloom  spontaneously,  like  the  flower, 

^  Cf.  Professor  Royce's  article  on  "  The  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil  " 
(*  International  Journal  of  Ethics,'  Oct.  1 893). 


216 


THE    MOEAL    IDEAL. 


with  a  life  that,  "  down  to  its  very  roots,  is  free."  The  one 
life  is  stiff,  stereotyped,  artificial;  the  other  breathes  of 
moral  health,  and  commends  goodness  to  its  fellows. 


''Pleasure"  11.  Such  a  complete  moral  life  we  have  called  Self- 
pinesL^^^"  realisation  or  Self-fulfilment.  We  might  have  called  it 
by  Aristotle's  name  of  Happiness,  and  thus  reclaimed 
the  word  from  the  exclusive  possession  of  the  Hedonists. 
Only,  in  that  case,  we  must  distinguish,  as  Aristotle  did, 
between  Happiness  and  Pleasure.  The  name  contains  a 
reference  to  pleasure,  but  pleasures,  even  in  their  "  sum," 
do  not  constitute  Happiness.  Happiness  is  not  the  sum 
or  aggregate  of  pleasures,  it  is  their  harmony  or  system. 
The  distinction  between  Happiness  and  Pleasure,  even 
within  the  sphere  of  feeling,  could  hardly  be  better 
stated  than  by  Professor  Dewey  :^  ''Pleasure  is  transi- 
tory and  relative,  enduring  only  while  some  special  activ- 
ity endures,  and  having  reference  only  to  that  activity. 
Happiness  is  permanent  and  universal.  It  results  only 
when  the  act  is  such  a  one  as  will  satisfy  all  the  interests 
of  the  self  concerned,  or  will  lead  to  no  conflict,  either 
present  or  remote.  Happiness  is  the  feeling  of  the  vjliolc 
self,  as  opposed  to  the  feeling  of  some  one  aspect  of  self." 
As  Misery  or  Unhappiness  is  not  pure  pain,  or  even  a 
balance  of  pain  over  pleasure,  but  lies  in  the  discord  of 
pleasures,  so  Happiness  lies  in  the  harmony  of  pleasures, 
or  in  the  reference  of  each  to  the  total  Self.  Happiness 
is,  in  a  word,  the  synthesis  of  pleasures.  And,  since 
pleasure  is  the  concomitant  of  activity.  Happiness,  or  the 
synthesis  and  harmony  of  pleasures,  depends  upon  and  is 

1  'Psychology,'  293. 


EUD^MONISM. 


217 


constituted  by  the  synthesis  of  activities,  and  ultimately 
by  that  supreme  activity  of  "  moral  synthesis  "  which  we 
have  been  considering.  We  thus  ascertain  the  true  place 
of  feeling  in  the  life  of  goodness,  and  the  truth  of  He- 
donism as  ethical  theory.  We  may  regard  pleasure,  with 
Aristotle,  as  the  bloom  of  the  virtuous  life,  as  the  index 
and  criterion  of  moral  progress.  The  End  of  life  is  neither 
to  know  nor  to  feel,  but  to  he.  The  life  of  man's  total  Self- 
hood is  its  own  End,  a  doing  which  is  the  expression  of 
hein^y  and  the  medium  of  higher  and  fuller  being,  of  a 
deeper  and  richer  unity  of  thought  and  sensibility.  In 
so  far  as  we  attain  that  end,  we  learn  to  "  think  clear,  feel 
deep,  bear  fruit  well."  The  life  of  Personality  is,  in  its 
very  essence,  a  completely  satisfying  life. 

"  Kesolve  to  be  thyself ;  and  know,  that  he 
Who  finds  himself,  loses  his  misery." 


12.  This  interpretation  of  Self-realisation  enables  us  to  Egoism  and 

„  Altruism. 

co-ordinate  and  unify  not  merely  the  several  elements  oi 
the  individual  life,  but  also  the  several  individual  lives. 
Since  each  is  not  a  mere  individual,  but  a  person,  in  the 
common  personality  of  man  is  found  the  ground  of  the 
conciliation  and  harmony  of  the  several  individual  lives. 
As  Kant  put  it,  each  being,  in  virtue  of  his  rationality,  an 
end-in-himself,  and  each  self-legislative,  there  is  found  a 
common  Law :  "  So  act  as  if  thou  couldst  will  the  prin- 
ciple of  thine  act  law  universal."  Every  other  Person  is, 
as  a  Person,  an  end-in-himself,  equally  with  me ;  my  atti- 
tude to  him  must  therefore  be  essentially  the  same  as  my 
attitude  to  myself.  The  Law  or  Formula  that  expresses 
both  his  life  and  mine  is  that  we  are  to  be  regarded 


218 


THE   MORAL    IDEAL. 


EUD^MONISM. 


219 


(whether  by  ourselves  or  by  one  another)  always  as  ends, 
never  as  merely  means  or  instruments.  He  cannot,  any 
more  than  I,  accept  a  law  which  does  not  find  its  sanction 
in  his  own  nature  as  a  rational  self.  Here  we  find  a  com- 
mon ground  and  meeting-place :  however  we  may  differ  m 
our  individuality,  yet  in  our  deepest  nature  or  in  our 
rational  personality  we  are  the  same.  We  are  the  same 
in  the  Form  of  our  nature,  and  therefore  in  the  Law  of 
our  life,  however  diverse  may  be  its  content. 

When  we  submit  ourselves  to  the  common  law  of  Per- 
sonality, we  cease  to  be  a  number  of  separate,  competing 
or   co-operating,   individuals;    we   together    constitute   a 
society,  a  "  system  "  or  "  kingdom  of  ends."     Individuality 
separates  us ;  personality  unites  us  with  our  fellows.     It 
is  as  persons  that  we  are  fellows.     The  only  strictly  com- 
mon or  social  Good  is  a  personal  Good-the   Good  of 
Persons.     The  hedonistic  or  sentient  Good  is  subjective 
and  individual-the  good  of  the  feeling  subject  or  individ- 
ual.    The  common  Good  must  be  the  product  of  reason, 
not  as  excluding  feeling,  but  as  containing  its  regulative 
form  and  law ;  of  personality,  as   including  and   domi- 
nating individuality.      Here,  in   the   general   as   in  the 
indivrdual  case,  we  find  the  clue  to  the  harmony  and 
co-ordination  of  sensibility.    Feeling,  being  made  organic 
to  rational  personality  in  each,  comes  under  the  wider  as 
well  as  under  the  narrower  law.     Since  man  cannot,  as  a 
rational  person,  separate  himself  from  his  fellows,  and 
shut  himself  up  in  his  own  individual  being,  he  cannot  do 
so  even  as  a  sentient  individual,  or  as  a  subject  of  sensi- 
bility.    For  he  is  not  two  selves  but  one ;  his  personality 
has  annexed  his  individuality.     This  is  the  real  unity  and 


solidarity  of  mankind.  We  are  joined  to  one  another,  and 
breathe  the  same  atmosphere,  in  the  deeper  things  of  the 
rational  spirit,  and  therefore  also  in  the  lesser  matters  of 
our  daily  life.  Our  life  is  one,  because  our  nature  is  one. 
From  the  true  ethical  standpoint,  there  is  no  cleft  between 
egoism  and  altruism,  as  there  is  none  between  reason  and 
sensibility.  We  are  at  once  Egoists  and  Altruists  in  every 
moral  action.  Each  is  an  Ego,  and  each  sees  in  his  brother 
an  ''Alter  Ego."  The  dualism  and  conflict  here,  as  in  the 
individual  case,  arises  from  the  "  rebellion  "  of  the  individ- 
ual against  the  person.  The  claims  of  individuals  con- 
flict, always  and  necessarily ;  the  claims  of  ^persons  never. 
The  moral  task,  therefore,  on  its  social  as  well  as  on  its 
individual  side,  lies  in  effecting  the  subjugation  of  individ- 
uality to  personality,  or  in  obeying  the  Law  of  reason, 
which  embraces  the  lives  of  our  fellows  as  well  as  our 
own: — "Be  a  person,  and  respect  others  as  persons;" 
subject  your  own  clamant  individuality  to  your  abiding 
rational  personality : 

"  To  thine  own  self  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man." 

13.  The  conception  of  Law,  prominent  in  the  ethical  Tiieeth- 

T       •       1   ^^^^  signifi- 

reflection  of  Plato  and  the  Stoics,  and  farther  emphasised  cauce  of 

„  -,  Law :  the 

by  Christianity,  has  been  made  a  corner-stone  or  modern  meauing  of 
ethical  theory  by  Butler  and  Kant.     Not  only  in  Intu-    "^" 
itionism  and  Transcendentalism,  but  even  in  Hedonism 
and  Evolutionism,  the  conception  plays  an  important  part. 
What  significance  can  we  attach  to  it  from  the  standpoint 
of  Personality  ? 

The   foregoing   discussion   has   partly   anticipated  the 


111 


220 


THE   MORAL    IDEAL. 


EUD^MONISM. 


221 


answer  to  this  question.  We  have  seen  that  the  moral 
task  of  man  is  the  co-ordination  or  organisation  of  im- 
pulse into  a  system  of  rational  ends,  and  that  the  co- 
ordinating or  organising  principle  is  the  idea  of  rational 
Self -hood  or  Personality.  In  this  idea  of  true  human 
Self-hood  is  found  the  Law  of  man's  life.  It  is  a  law 
universal ;  for  while  the  content  of  these  personal  ends 
will  vary  with  the  individuality  of  the  sensible  subject, 
and  with  the  stimuli  that  excite  such  individual  sensi- 
bility, their  form  will  be  the  same  in  all,  being  con- 
stituted by  the  common  rational  Ego  in  each.  We  thus 
avoid,  on  the  one  hand,  the  formalism  of  the  Intuitional 
and  Kantian  Ethics,  with  their  insistence  upon  mere 
obedience  to  rational,  and  therefore  universal,  Law ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  subjectivity  and  particularism  of 
Hedonism,  which  finds  the  moral  criterion  in  the  feeling 
of  the  individual  subject.  The  interpretation  of  Person- 
ality as  including  individuality  provides  for  the  form  of 
reason  a  content  of  sensibility,  and  thus  secures  a  con- 
crete view  of  the  moral  life :  it  shows  us  the  universal 
in  the  particular.  I  am  different  from  you,  for  we  are 
both  individuals ;  and  since  our  individuality  must  colour 
our  respective  ideals  of  life,  these  ideals  are,  so  far, 
different.  But  while  it  is  the  individual  self  that  has 
to  be  realised,  it  is  the  complete  Self  or  Personality  of  the 
individual,  into  whose  common  life  the  individuality  of 
each  must  be  taken  up  and  interpreted  as  an  element; 
and  this  secures  a  common  ideal  for  all. 

The  peculiar  form  or  category  of  moral  experience  is 
thus  seen  to  be  Law,  Duty,  or  Obligation.  The  difference 
between  moral  or  spiritual  and  natural  Law  is  just  the 


difference  between  the  life  of  a  being  that  shares  con- 
sciously in  reason  and  one  that  does  not  so  share.  The 
universe  being  rational  through  and  through,  the  "  Law  " 
or  Formula  of  all  phenomena,  of  all  occurrences,  is  ra- 
tional. But  that  Law  may  be  expressed  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  hy  the  being  or  merely  through  the  being. 
Now,  the  Law  of  the  life  of  a  rational  being  must  be 
Autonomy:  moral  self-realisation  is  "realisation  of  Self 
by  Self."  The  Law  of  Nature's  life  is  Heteronomy;  it 
is  part  of  a  larger  system,  and  comes  under  the  Law  of 
that  system.  But  a  rational  being  is  an  End-in-himself, 
and  can  find  nowhere  save  in  his  own  nature  the  Law  of 
his  life.  This  is  the  prerogative  of  Keason— to  legislate 
for  itself,  to  be  at  once  subject  and  sovereign  in  the  moral 
kino-dom,  as  it  is  at  once  teacher  and  scholar  in  the  intel- 

lectual  school. 

The  transition  from  the  "  innocence,"  or  non-moral  con-  Animal 

,  .,  ,  I'll  i.         ^   "  inno- 

dition,  of  the  animal  or  the  child,  which  has  not  yet  cence "  and 

r*       "know- 
broken  with  Nature,  but  remains  m  unconscious  subjec-  ledgeof 

tion  to  its  Law,  to  the  moral  status,  in  which  "  Law "  fvii'"^''' 
asserts  itself  in  the  very  consciousness  of  a  possible  and 
actual  disobedience  to  it,— thus  creating  the  distinction 
between  good  and  evil,— has  been  naively  represented  by 
the  imagination  of  early  man  as  a  "Fall"  from  a  pre- 
vious state  of  bliss.  A  Fall,  and  yet  also  an  ascent  in 
the  scale  of  being ;  a  fall  from  Holiness,  but  an  ascent 
from  Innocence.  "Ye  shall  be  as  gods,  knowing  good 
and  evil ; "  "  lest  they  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  the 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  and  become  as  one  of  us." 
Christianity  has  touched  and  changed  this  yearning  after 
a  Golden  Age  in  the  past  experience  of  the  race  into  a 


Various 
forms  of 
Law. 


999 

•J   «^    aiJ 


THE   MOEAL   IDEAL. 


yearning  after  a  future  Golden  Age.  The  conception  of 
Evolution  also  teaches  us  to  regard  human  history  as  a 
progress,  not  a  regress.  And  we  have  ourselves  seen  that 
the°consciousness  of  the  breach  between  the  ideal  and  the 
actual,  of  the  dualism  between  nature  and  spirit,  is  the 
essential  condition  of  a  finite  Self-consciousness  and  Self- 
realisation.  It  may  be  that  we  cannot  explain  the  origin 
of  evil ;  but,  evil  being  there,  we  can  understand  its  moral 
significance.  Evil  is  the  shadow  cast  by  the  moral  Ideal 
upon  the  actual  life.  The  sense  of  Failure  comes  with  the 
consciousness  of  an  ideal;  nature  never  "  fails,"  man  always 
does.  And  so  long  as  the  breach  continues  between  the 
actual  and  the  ideal,  so  long  must  the  element  of  Law 
or    Obligation   enter  into  the   substance  of   the   moral 

consciousness. 

But  Law  or  Obligation   assumes   different  aspects   at 
the  successive  stages  of  the  moral  life  of  the  individual. 
It    is    first    external,    then    internal;    first    "Do   this," 
then  "  Be  this."     It  is  first  the  outer  Law  or  Command, 
accompanied  by  Coercion,  whether  of  reward  or  punish- 
ment, of  the  parent,  of  the  State,  of  social  opinion,— a 
kind  of  pressure  of  his  environment,  moulding  the  indi- 
vidual from  without.      This  is   the   stage  of  "Abstract 
Right,"  as  Hegel  terms  it,  the  stage  of  passive  and  un- 
critical acquiescence  by   the   individual  in  the   conven- 
tional morality  in   whose  atmosphere  he  has  grown  up. 
As  he  advances  to  moral  manhood,  the  individual  passes 
from  this  allegiance  to  the  outer  law  to  the  severer  rule 
of  the  law  which  he  finds  written  in   his   own   heart. 
This  is  the  stage  of  Mm^alitat,  of  the  reign  of  the  inner 
Law  of  the  individual  ''  Conscience,"  of  the  assertion  of 


EUD.EMONISM. 


22 


o 


the  "right  of  private  judgment"  in  the  moral  sphere, 
the  stage  at  which  the  life,  become  a  "law  unto  itself,"  is 
full  of  introspective  "  conscientiousness,"  and  liable,  in  its 
revolt  from  the  morality  of  custom  and  convention,  to 
become  the  prey  of  individual  or  sectarian  enthusiasms 
and  fanaticisms.  Necessary  as  this  stage  is,  and  per- 
manent as,  in  a  sense,  it  may  necessarily  be  for  the 
individual,  he  yet  must  seek  to  escape  from  its  subjec- 
tivity and  limitation,  and  to  reach  the  insight  into  the 
partial,  if  not  complete,  identity  of  the  outer  and  the 
inner  Law— the  stage  of  "Ethicality"  or  "  Sittlichkeit." 
Still,  the  critical  point  in  the  moral  history  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  that  at  which  the  Law  passes  from  the  outer 
to  the  inner  form.  The  outer  Law  is  always,  in  truth, 
from  an  ethical  standpoint,  the  reflection  of  the  inner; 
it  is  the  deepest  Self  of  humanity  that  makes  its  con- 
stant claim  upon  the  individual  man,  and  demands  its 
satisfaction.  And  the  continual  criticism  of  the  outer 
by  the  inner  Law,  of  convention  and  custom  by  Con- 
science, is  the  very  root  and  spring  of  all  moral  progress. 
Indeed  the  breach  between  the  inner  and  the  outer  is 
never  entirely  healed;  the  ideal  State  is  never  reached. 
The  inner  demand  is  absolute,  a  "  categorical  impera-  its  abso- 

,     ,    „    .       ,  .  i>    .1       luteness. 

tive."  Its  unyielding  "Thou  shalt  is  the  voice  of  the 
ideal  to  the  actual  man,  and  the  ideal  admits  of  no 
concession,  no  "  give  and  take,"  no  compromise  with  the 
actual.  This  demand  of  the  rational  and  ideal  Self  is  not 
to  be  misinterpreted,  as  if  its  absoluteness  meant  the 
annihilation  of  feeling  or  "  nature."  The  demand  is  for 
such  a  perfect  mastery  of  the  impulsive  and  sentient, 
or  "natural"   self,   that   in    it   the   true   self,   which   is 


224 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


fundamentally  rational,  may  be  realised;  that  it  may 
be  the  rational  or  human,  and  not  the  merely  sentient 
or  animal  self,  that  lives.  What  produces  the  constant 
contradiction  between  ideal  and  attainment  is  not  the 
presence  of  feeling,  as  a  surd  that  cannot  be  eliminated. 
It  is  that  the  harmony  of  a  life  in  which  feelmg  is 
subdued  to  reason  must  become  ever  more  perfect,  the 
life  of  the  true  Self  must  become  ever  more  complete, 
as  moral  progress  continues. 

For  the  demand  of   the  inner  Self  for  realisation  is 
an  infinite  demand.     The  Self  never  is  fully  realised,  it 
remains  always  an  ideal  demanding  realisation.     Here, 
in  the  constant  ethical  antinomy,— the  perpetual  contra- 
diction between  ideal  and  attainment,— is  the  source  of 
the  undying  moral  consciousness  of  Law  or  Obligation. 
Ever  as  we  attain  in  any  measure  to  it,  the  Ideal  seems 
to  grow  and  widen  and  deepen,  so  that  it  is  still  for  us  the 
unattained.      One  mountain-path   ascended   only  reveals 
height  after  height  in  the  great  Beyond  of  the  moral  hfe. 
It  i"s  those  that  stay  on  the  plane  of  a  superficial  and  con- 
ventional morality  who  think  they  can  see  the  summits  of 
its  hills.     Those  who  climb  know  better.     It  is  they  who 
scale  the  mountain-tops  of  duty  who  know  best  what 
heights  are  yet  to  climb,  and  how  far  its   high  peaks 
penetrate  into  God's  own  heaven.     It  is  the  infinity  of 
the  ideal  Self  that  makes  it,  in  its  totality,  unrealisable, 
and  the  life  of  duty  inexhaustible,  by  a  finite  being.     No 
improvement  in  environment,  physical  or  social,  can  effect 
the  entire  disappearance  of  the  contradiction  between  the 
Ideal  and  its  attainment.     For  the  Ideal  originates,  not 
without  but  within  ourselves,  in  "  the  abysmal  deeps  of 


EUD^MONISM. 


225 


personality,"  and  the  fountain  of  those  deeps  is  never 
dried  up.  The  Ideal  is  always  heing  realised,  it  is  true, 
in  fuller  and  richer  measure.  But  "  to  have  attained  "  or 
''  to  be  already  perfect "  would  be  to  have  finished  the 
moral  life.  Such  an  absolute  coincidence  of  the  ideal  and 
the  actual  is  inconceivable,  just  because  the  Good  is  the 
Ideal,  and  not  a  mere  projection  of  the  actual.  The  latter 
interpretation  of  the  Good  would  make  it  finite,  and 
attainable  enough  by  human  weakness.  But  to  limit 
the  Ideal  were  to  destroy  it.  The  man  inspired  with  a 
loyal  devotion  to  the  Good  is  willing  to  see  the  path 
of  his  life  stretch  ever  forward  and  upward,  to  lift  up 
his  eyes  unto  the  eternal  hills  of  the  divine  Holiness 
itself.  For  he  knows  that  he  has  laid  the  task  upon 
himself,  and  that,  if  failure  and  disappointment  come 
inevitably  to  him  in  the  attempt  to  execute  it,  his  is 
also  the  dignity  of  this  "high  calling,"  and  his  too  a 
success  which,  but  for  the  Ideal  and  the  failure  which 
faithfulness  to  it  implies,  had  been  for  him  impossible. 
He  would  not  exchange  this  human  life,  with  all  its  pain 
and  weariness,  with  all  its  humiliation  and  disappoint- 
ment, for  any  lower.  Better  surely  this  noble  human 
dissatisfaction  than  the  most  perfect  measure  of  animal 
content.  Is  not  such  failure  "only  the  other  side  of 
success ; "  is  not  such  "  discontent "  indeed  "  divine  "  ? 

To  seek  to  rise  above  Duty  or  Law  is,  as  Kant  said, 
"  moral  Fanaticism."  It  is  the  peculiar  category  of  human 
life,  of  the  life  of  a  being  at  once  finite  and  infinite ;  it  is 
the  expression  of  the  dualism  of  Form  and  Matter,  of 
Eeason  and  Sensibility.  Certainly  we  shall  not  overcome 
the  dualism  by  minimising  it ;  rather  it  must  be  pressed 

P 


II 


226 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


until,  it  may  be  in  another  life  or  in  prophetic  glimpses  in 
the  religious  life  even  now,  it  yields  the  higher  unity  and 
peace  for  which  our  spirits  crave.    Meantime,  it  is  no 
ignoble  bondage ;  if  the  spirit  is  imprisoned,  it  is  ever 
breaking  through  the  bars  of  its  prison-house.    Man  lays 
the  law  upon  himself ;  it  is  because  he  is  a  citizen  of  the 
higher  world  that  he  feels  the  obligation  of  its  law,  and 
thi  bondage  of  the  lower.     And  when  he  recognises  the 
source  of  the  law,  it  ceases,  in  a  sense,  to  be  a  burden ;  or 
it  becomes  one  which  he  is  willing  and  eager   to  bear, 
and  which  becomes  lighter  the  longer  and  the  more  faith- 
fully it  is  borne.    The  yoke  of  such  a  service  is  indeed 
easy,  and  its  burden  light.  , 

14  It  may  help  to  the  understanding  as  well  as  the 

vindication  of  the  general  position  above  described,  to 

,  , .  »/,    "lance  at  one  or  two  of  the  most  striking  e.xpressions  of 

[d)  in  r  nil-  o  T         1  "1 

osophy.       Eud^monisni  in  philosophy  and  in  hterature.     in  philo- 
sophy,  I  will  select  rather  from  the  Greeks  than  from 
the  moderns,  partly  because  their  contribution  to  ethical 
theory  is  less  familiar,  or  at  any  rate  less  appreciated,  and 
partly  because   the   modern   statements   are   in   a  great 
measure  dependent  upon  the  ancient,  and  can  be   fully 
understood  only  in  the  light  of  the  latter.     Among  the 
moderns,    we    owe    the    most    adequate    expressions    of 
Butler.       Eud^monism  to  Butler  and  to  Hegel.     From  the  sketch 
already  given  of  Butler's  ethical  theory,  it  will  have  been 
observed''  how  much  he  owes  to  the  Greeks.     His  leading 
conceptions  of  human  nature  as  a  civil  constitution,  of  the 
authoritative  rank  of  the  rational  or  reflective  principles, 
of  the  harmony  which  results  from  the  just  division  of 


Expres- 
sions of 
Eudse- 
monism 


EUD^MONISM. 


227 


labour  among  the  various  elements  of  our  nature,  and  the 
discord  which  comes  from  their  mutual  interference  and 
the  insurrection  of  the  lower  against  the  rule  of  the  higher 
— all  this  we  already  find  in  Plato.  And  Aristotle  had,  like 
Butler,  discovered  the  secret  of  human  virtue  in  that  reason 
which  is  the  differentiating  attribute  of  human  nature. 

It  is  Hegel  who,  of  all  modern  philosophers,  has  given  Hegel, 
most  adequate  expression  to  the  essential  principle  of  the 
ethical  life,  alike  on  its  negative  and  on  its  positive  side. 
With  Kant  he  recognises  the  full  claim  of  reason,  but  he 
insists  upon  correlating  with  it  the  rightful  claim  of  sensi- 
bility. In  ethics  as  in  metaphysics,  Hegel  finds  the  uni- 
versal in  the  particular,  the  rational  in  the  sensible.  In 
the  evolution  of  the  moral  as  of  the  intellectual  life,  he 
discovers  the  dialectical  movement  of  affirmation  through 
negation,  of  life  through  death ;  in  the  one  as  in  the  other 
phase  of  human  experience,  "  that  is  first  which  is  natural, 
and  afterward  that  which  is  spiritual."  The  life  of  nat- 
ural sensibility  is  only  the  raw  material  of  the  moral 
life ;  to  be  moralised,  it  must  be  rationalised.  In  the 
words  of  Dr  Hutchison  Stirling :  ^  "To  Hegel,  then,  even 
the  body,  nay,  the  mind  itself,  require  to  be  taken  posses- 
sion of,  to  become  in  actuality  ours.  Culture,  education, 
is  required  for  both.  The  body,  in  the  immediacy  of  its 
existence,  is  inadequate  to  the  soul,  and  must  be  made  its 
ready  organ  and  its  animated  tool.  The  mind,  too,  is  at 
first,  as  it  were,  immersed  in  nature,  and  requires  en- 
franchisement. This  enfranchisement  is  in  each  subject 
the  hai'd  labour  against  mere  subjectivity  of  action,  and 
against  the  immediacy  of  appetite,  as  against  the  subjec- 

^  'Philosophy  of  Law,'  42. 


228 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


tive  variety  of  feeling  and  the  arbitrariness  or  caprice  of 
self-will.  But  through  the  labour  it  is  that  subjective 
will  attains  to  objectivity,  and  becomes  capable  and  worthy 
of  being  the  actuality  of  the  idea.  For  so  particularity  is 
wrought  into  universality,  and  through  universality  be- 
comes the  concrete  singular." 

Yet  this  "  concrete  singular "  of  the  universalised  par- 
ticular or  the  rationalised  sensibility  is  not,  for  Hegel,  the 
Person ;  for  him  Personality  is  only  a  provisional  category, 
not  the  ultimate  category  of  the  moral  life.     Hegel's  Per- 
son is  the  legal  person,  subject  of  rights,  not  the  moral 
person,  strictly  objective  and  rational.     Hence  the  prin- 
ciple, "  Be  a  person,  and  respect  others  as  persons,"  is  for 
him  only  a  stage  in  the  ethical  life,  to  be  transcended  in 
its  perfect  development.     It  is  of  the  essence  of  his  pan- 
theistic metaphysic  to  sink  the  Personality  of  man  in  the 
universal  Life  of  God,  and  to  conceive  human  life  as  ulti- 
mately modal  and  impersonal  rather  than  as  substantive 
and  personal.     Yet  Hegel  does  much  for  the  conception 
of  Personality  both  in  the  intellectual  and  in  the  moral 
reference,  and,  if  we  sit  loose  to  his  final  metaphysical 
construction,  we  shall  find  in  his  philosophy  as  striking 
and  adequate  ethical  statements  as  are  to  be  found  any- 
where.   Take,  e.g„  this  statement  of  the  distinction  between 
the  individual  and  the  person  :  "  In  personality,  indeed,  it 
lies  that  I,  as  on  all  sides  of  me,  in  inward  desire,  need, 
greed,  and  appetite,  and  in  direct  outward  existence,  this 
perfectly  limited  and  finite  individual,  am  yet,  as  person, 
infinite,  universal,  and  free,  and  know  myself,  even  in  my 
finitude,  as  such."     But  our  indebtedness  to  Hegel  and  his 
school  for  the  position  we  have  reached  is  so  large  as  to 


I 


EUDiEMONISM. 


229 


have  necessarily  forced  itself  upon  the  reader's  attention, 
and  to  render  superfluous  any  further  illustrations  from 
that  quarter- at  the  present  stage.  Let  us  turn,  then,  to 
the  Greeks,  to  whom  Hegel  would  be  the  first  to  acknow- 
ledsje  his  own  indebtedness. 

Whether  one  takes  Plato's  psychology  or  his  ethics —  Plato, 
and  they  are  inseparable — one  is  equally  surprised  at  the 
completeness  of  his  apprehension  of  the  euda^monistic 
interpretation  of  the  moral  life.  He  distinguishes  three  ele- 
ments in  human  nature — reason,  spirit,  and  appetite  (X6709, 
Ovfio^,  TO  einOvfiTjTLKov).  Eeason  is  a  unity,  so  also  is 
spirit,  but  appetite  is  a  manifold.  Further,  w^hile  both 
spirit  and  appetite  are  impulsive  in  their  nature,  their 
relation  to  reason  is  not  the  same.  Appetite  is  antagon- 
istic to  reason,  and  is  strictly  irrational  {to  oXoyiaTifcov) ; 
spirit  is  reason's  natural  ally, — reason's  watch-dog  sent 
forth  to  curb  the  alien  force  of  appetite,  and  again  re- 
called and  kept  in  check  by  its  master  reason.  Here  we 
find  a  recognition,  first,  of  the  dependence  of  reason  upon 
sensibility  for  the  execution  of  its  own  ends,  and,  secondly, 
of  the  seeds  in  the  human  soul  alike  of  harmony  and  dis- 
cord with  the  ends  of  reason.  The  various  elements  have 
in  them  the  possibility  of  harmony  as  well  as  of  discord, 
and  it  is  for  reason,  which  possesses  the  key  to  the  har- 
mony, to  use  the  force  provided  to  its  hand  in  the  impul- 
sive nature  for  the  harmonising  of  these  diverse  elements. 

The  figure  of  the  Charioteer  has  the  same  lesson.  The 
Charioteer  is  the  rational  Self,  whose  function  it  is  to 
guide  the  journey  of  the  soul.  But  the  Charioteer  were 
helpless  without  the  steeds ;  his  is  the  guidance  only,  it 
is  theirs  to  perform  the  journey.     And,  again,  there  are 


230 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


two  steeds  ;  and  while  the  one  is  rebellious,  like  the  horde 

of  ungoverned  appetites  that  would  disturb  the  fair  order 

of  reason  in  the  life  of  the  soul,  the  other  is,  like  the 

rationally  minded  spirit,  apt  to  obey  the  rein  of  the  wise 

Charioteer.     "  Let  our  figure  be  of  a  composite  nature— a 

pair  of  winged  horses  and  a  charioteer.     Now  the  winged 

horses  and  the  charioteer  of  the  gods  are  all  of  them 

noble,  and  of  noble  breed,  but   our  horses   are   mixed: 

moreover,  our  charioteer  drives  them  in  a  pair ;  and  one 

of  them  is  noble  and  of  noble  origin,  and  the  other  is 

ignoble  and  of  ignoble  origin ;  and  the  driving,  as  might 

be  expected,  is  no  easy  matter  with  us."     That  soul  "  which 

follows  God  best  and  is  likest  to  him  lifts  the  head  of  the 

Charioteer  into  the  outer  world,  and  is  carried  round  in 

the  revolution,  troubled  indeed  by  the  steeds,  and  with 

difficulty  beholding  true  being;  while  another  rises  and 

falls,  and  sees,  and  again  fails  to  see,  by  reason  of  the 

unruliness  of  the  steeds.     The  rest  of  the  souls  are  also 

lonf^in^^  after  the  upper  world,  and  they  all  follow,  but  not 

being  strong  enough  they  are  carried  round  in  the  deep 

below,  plunging,  treading  on  one  another,  striving  to  be 

first ;  and  there  is  confusion  and  the  extremity  of  effort, 

and  many  of  them  are  lamed,  or  have  their  wings  broken 

through  the  ill-driving  of  the  charioteers."  ^     But  let  the 

Charioteer  only  do  his  driving  well,  holding  the  rein  tightly 

over  the  unruly  steed  of  earthly  passion,  and  it,  too,  will 

be  guided  into  the  upward  path,  and  will  at  last  become 

the  other's  fellow  there.     "  For  the  food  which  is  suited  to 

the  highest  part  of  the  soul  comes  out  of  that  meadow,  and 

the  wing  on  which  the  soul  soars  is  nourished  with  this." 

1  'Phfcdrus,'  248  (Jowett's  transl.) 


EUD^MONISM. 


231 


And,  once  more,  the  highest  life  of  the  soul,  the  life  of 
philosophic  contemplation,  so  far  from  being  a  passionless 
life  of  pure  thought,  is  itself  an  intensely  passionate  life. 
For  the  supremely  true  and  good  is  also  the  supremely 
beautiful,  and  the  soul  that  is  weaned  from  the  beauties 
of  the  merely  sensible  world  is  rapt  in  the  passion  of  that 
Beauty  absolute  and  eternal,  which  is  imparted  to  the 
ever-growing  and  perishing  beauties  of  all  other  things. 
"  He  who,  under  the  influence  of  true  love,  rising  upwards 
from  these,  begins  to  see  that  beauty,  is  not  far  from  the 
end.  And  the  true  order  of  going  or  being  led  by  another 
to  the  things  of  love,  is  to  use  the  beauties  of  earth  as  steps 
along  which  he  mounts  upwards  for  the  sake  of  that  other 
beauty,  going  from  one  to  two,  and  from  tw^o  to  all  fair 
forms,  and  from  fair  forms  to  fair  practices,  and  from  fair 
practices  to  fair  notions,  until  from  fair  notions  he  arrives 
at  the  notion  of  absolute  beauty,  and  at  last  knows  what 
the  essence  of  beauty  is.  This  ...  is  that  life  above  all 
others  which  man  should  live,  in  the  contemplation  of 
beauty  absolute.  .  .  .  What  if  man  had  eyes  to  see  the 
true  beauty — the  divine  beauty,  I  mean,  pure  and  clear 
and  unalloyed,  not  clogged  with  the  pollutions  of  mor- 
tality, and  all  the  colours  and  vanities  of  human  life — 
thither  looking,  and  holding  converse  with  the  divine 
beauty,  divine  and  simple  ?  Do  you  not  see  that  in  that 
communion  only,  beholding  beauty  with  the  eye  of  the 
mind,  he  will  be  enabled  to  bring  forth,  not  images  of 
beauty,  but  realities  (for  he  has  hold  not  of  an  image  but 
of  a  reality),  and  bringing  forth  and  nourishing  true  virtue, 
to  become  the  friend  of  God  and  be  immortal,  if  mortal 
man  may."    And  Socrates  adds,  that  "in  the  attainment  of 


232 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


this  end  human  nature  will  not  easily  find  a  better  helper 
than  love.  And  therefore,  also,  I  say,  that  every  man 
ouaht  to  honour  hhn,  as  I  myself  honour  him,  and  walk 
in  his  ways,  and  exhort  others  to  do  the  same,  and  praise 
the  power  and  spirit  of  love,  according  to  the  measure  of 
my  ability  now  and  ever."  ^  For  the  loves  of  earth  are 
our  schoolmasters  to  bring  us  at  last,  when  all  the  tem- 
pest of  the  soul  is  laid,  and  all  its  passions  purified  and 
ennobled,  unto    the    heavenly  Love,  the   Love   of  God 

Himself. 

Plato's  central  ethical  conception  is  cast  in  the  mould 
of  his  psychology.     It  is  that  of  a  perfect  harmony  of  all 
the  elements  of  the  soul.     The  good  life  is  for  him  the 
musical  life ;  the  life  of  a  soul  perfectly  attuned  to  reason 
cannot  but  "  make  music."     His  favourite  figure  is  that  of 
the  State ;  the  soul,  like  the  true  State,  ought  to  act  as  a 
unit,  the  sovereign  will  of  the  whole  being  accepted  by 
each  of  the  parts.     The  sovereign  element  in  the  soul  is, 
of  course,  reason,  whose  insight  into  the  Good  of  the 
whole  fits  it  to  plan  for  the  whole  and  to  compose  the 
symphony  of  its  common   life.      But  if   there  is  to  be 
sovereignty,   there    must   also    be   subjection    and    sub- 
mission; and  the  subject-class  is  the  brood  of  "  appetites," 
_  the  artisans  and  labourers  of  the  city  of  the  soul,  to 
be  "kept  under"  and  controlled,  for  they  have  no  self- 
control.     The  "  spirit "  fulfils  the  military  and  executive 
office,  enforcing  the  behests  of  reason  in  the  sphere  of 
sensibility.     Thus  the  harmony  has  two  sides— a  negative 
and  a  positive ;  it  is  at  once  Temperance  or  self-control 
and  Justice  or  self-realisation.     If  the  order  of  reason  is 

1  'Symposium,'  210-212  (Jowett's  transl.) 


EUD.^MONISM. 


233 


to  be  maintained,  the  disorder  of  sensibility  must  be  put 
down ;  if  the  good  of  the  whole  is  to  be  attained,  the  in- 
surrection of  .the  parts  against  the  whole  must  be  quelled. 
Temperance,  or  the  non-interference  of  any  part  with 
the  proper  work  of  another  part,  is  no  less  essential 
than  Justice,  or  the  doing  of  its  own  work  by  each  part 
of  the  soul.  The  essential  evil  in  this  spiritual  city  is 
the  claim  of  the  part  to  be  the  whole — the  evil  of  dis- 
integration. The  unjust  life  is  the  intemperate  or  re- 
bellious, the  discordant  life.  Justice  is  "  the  health  and 
beauty  and  well-being  of  the  soul,"  the  integrity  of  the 
nature ;  injustice  is  the  "  disease  and  deformity  "  which 
come  from  the  uprising  of  the  part  against  the  whole,  of 
the  inferior  against  the  superior  principle.  The  life  of 
righteousness  is  the  life  of  the  integrated  and  harmonised 
nature,  which  has  reduced  itself  from  a  "  mere  manifold  " 
of  sensibility  to  the  unity  of  rational  system  [eva  <yev6fievov 
eK  TToWcov),  and  attained  to  friendship  with  itself  {<j>lXov 
yevo/xevov  eavT(p).  But  we  have  seen  that  there  are  in 
human  nature  the  seeds  of  discord  as  well  as  of  har- 
mony, of  war  as  well  as  of  peace,  of  disease  as  well  as 
of  health ;  and  its  true  welfare  must  be  reached  through 
stern  discipline  and  hard  struggle.  This  struggle  is  the 
fight  of  clear  reason  against  blind  irrational  impulse ;  and 
victory  comes  with  the  opening  of  the  eyes  of  impulse  to 
see  that  larsjer  rational  sfood  which  includes  its  own. 

Aristotle's  term  for  the  Good  is  evSac/jLovLa,  and  the  Aristotle. 
entire  spirit  of  his  ethics  is  eud^emonistic.     I  will  here 
signalise  only  one  or  two  of  his  fundamental  ethical  ideas, 
and  suggest  their  interpretation  in  the  line  of  the  theory 
here  called  by  his  own  name,  Eudaemonism. 


234 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


In  the  first  place,  Aristotle  recognises  the  difference 
between  the  moral  and  the  natural  development  or  self- 
realisation,  between  the  ethical  and  the  physical  process. 
In  both  cases  we  have  the  actualisation  of  the  potential, 
but  the  manner  of  the  actualisation  is  different  in  the  two 
cases.    In  nature  the  potentiality  is  a  single  and  necessary 
one,— the  acorn  can  only  become  the  oak,  the  boy  the  man. 
In  morality  there  is  always  a  double  or  alternative  poten- 
tiality,— a  man  may  become  either  virtuous  or  vicious.    It 
is,  moreover,  by  doing  the  same  things,  only  in  a  different 
way,  that  either  of  the  alternative  potentialities  is  actual- 
ised.     As  it  is  by  playing  on  the  harp  that  men  become 
either  good  or  bad  harpers,— by  playing  well  that  they  be- 
come good,  by  playing  ill  that  they  become  bad  musicians, 
—so  is  it  with  all  the  activities  of  life  ;  in  the  same  activi- 
ties are  the  beginnings  of  both  good  and  evil  habits,  of 
both  the  virtues  and  the  vices.     Whether  a  man  shall  be- 
come virtuous  or  vicious,  depends  on  the  manner  of  these 

activities. 

Whether,  however,  he  becomes  virtuous  or  vicious,  he 
has  only  actualised  the  character  which  already  existed  in 
him  potentially.  The  seeds  of  the  particular  vice  or  virtue 
which  reveals  itself  in  his  character  lay  in  his  original 
nature  and  the  circumstances  of  his  lot.  For  it  is  not  in 
the  choice  of  the  absolute  Mean,  but  of  the  Mean  relative 
to  the  individual,  that  virtue  lies.  Virtue  is  universal  and 
not  of  private  interpretation,  for  it  is  always  "  according 
to  right  reason  " ;  but  it  is  also  particular,  and  constituted 
by  individual  temperament  and  concrete  circumstances 
(the  latter  being  called  by  Aristotle  "  furniture  of  fortune  "), 
or  "  as  a  prudent  man  would  decide."     Virtue  and  vice  are 


EUDiEMONISM. 


235 


the  correlates  of  the  individuality  and  its  opportunities  of 
actualisation ;  nor  does  Aristotle  hold  that  these  elements 
of  idiosyncrasy  can  be  eliminated,  or  the  concrete  life  of 
man  contained  within  the  limits  of  an  exact  mathematical 
formula.  If  his  moral  Ideal  is,  in  a  sense,  universal  and 
absolute — an  Ideal  of  reason, — it  is  also,  in  a  sense,  par- 
ticular and  relative — an  Ideal  of  sensibility. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Mean  is  itself  most  significant  of 
its  author's  regard  for  the  life  of  sensibility  as  well  as 
for  that  of  reason.  Vice  consists  in  excess  or  defect  of 
that  which,  in  itself  and  in  its  appropriate  measure,  is 
ofood.  And  if  in  reason  he  finds  the  "  common  measure  " 
of  sensibility,  he  yet  admits,  as  we  have  just  seen,  that 
this  rational  measure  must  be  modified  by  a  fresh  refer- 
ence to  sensibility  itself ;  that,  in  a  way,  sensibility  also 
is  a  measure. 

In  his  psychology  Aristotle  may  be  said  to  anticipate 
the  distinction  between  the  individual  and  the  person  in 
his  distinction  between  the  irrational  (or  non-rational), 
passive,  nutritive  and  animal  soul,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  rational,  active,  creative  soul,  on  the  other,  as  well  as 
in  his  interpretation  of  the  latter  as  the  true  being  and 
perfect  actualisation  of  the  former.  But  the  real  psycho- 
loi]jical  basis  of  Aristotle's  ethical  Eudsemonism  is  to  be 
found  in  his  conception  of  the  relation  of  the  soul  to  the 
body.  The  soul  is  for  him  the  Entelechy  of  the  body, 
its  perfect  fulfilment  and  actualisation,  its  final  Form, 
its  very  Essence,  Truth,  and  Being.  This  conception 
necessitates  a  revision,  and  a  new  interpretation,  of 
Aristotle's  own  division  of  human  nature  into  "  rational " 
and  ''irrational"  elements.      From  this  standpoint  there 


236 


THE   MORAL    IDEAL. 


can  be  no  finally  "  irrational "  element  in  man,  any  more 
than  in  the  universe.  For,  in  man  as  in  the  universe,  all 
*'  matter "  is  quick  with  "  form  " ;  the  one  is  the  poten- 
tiality, the  other  the  actuality  of  Form.  Everywhere  we 
have  the  promise  and  potency  of  reason  :  the  "  irrational " 
is  but  reason  in  the  making,  in  the  slow  process  of  its 
increasing  manifestation.  Nothing  is  irrational,  since  in 
all  things  are  the  seeds  of  reason ;  everything  is  irrational, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  yet  unactualised  potentiality,  or  mere 
"matter"  not  yet  formed. 

The  Soul  or  the  Self  is,  then,  the  Logos  of  the  body,  the 
articulate  expression  of  the  body's  total  Meaning,  its  End 
and  its  true  Being  (to  tl  rjv  elvai).  The  soul's  true  life 
must,  therefore,  be  the  summation  of  all  the  possibilities  of 
the  body,  such  an  activity  as  shall  be  the  perfect  expression 
of  every  element  and  the  evolution  of  that  nature  in  its 
totality,— the  final  and  perfect  Form  which  is  "  without 
matter"  because  it  has  taken  up  into  itself  all  the  "matter," 
and  expressed  it,  leaving  nothing  out.  The  only  evil,  the 
only  "  irrational "  life,  would  be  that  in  which  the  process 
of  the  victorious  reason  was  arrested,  and  in  which  that 
was  accounted  as  Form  which  was  not  yet  the  final  form, 
but,  to  him  who  had  seen  its  form,  only  "  matter  "  after  all. 
The  essence  of  evil  would  be  to  act  as  if  we  had  already 
attained  or  were  already  perfect,  instead  of  pressing  to- 
ward the  mark  of  our  nature's  perfection.  Filled  with  this 
aspiration,  the  virtuous  man  is  unwilling  to  stereotype  any 
of  virtue's  forms,  however  fair,  knowing  that  to  stay  the 
process  of  the  life  of  reason  is  to  kill  that  life. 


15.  Let  us  look,  in  closing,  at  one  or  two  of  the  most 


EUD^MONISM. 


237 


striking  and   comprehensive   literary  expressions   of  the  (&)  in  Lit- 
ethical  dualism  and  of  the  process  by  which,  in  the  ethical 
life,  it  is  overcome.    Take  first  the  Faust  story — one  of  the 
most  remarkable  of  these  expressions — in  Goethe's  treat- 
ment of  it.     The  temptation  of  Faust  is  to  sacrifice  the 
life  of  thought,  the  fruits,  won  by  hard  labour,  of  the 
scholar's  life,  for  a  career  of  merely  sensuous  satisfaction. 
Why  "  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days "  ?     Why 
miss  the  pulse-beats  of  life's  keenest  joys  ?     Both  lives  he 
cannot  live  ;  he  must  make  his  choice  between  them,  and, 
once  made,  the  choice  shall  be  irrevocable.     The  problem 
comes  to  Faust  as  the  representative  of  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  spirit  of  the  elder  and  the  newer  time.     His 
has  been  the  life  of  the  mediaeval  scholar,  a  life  of  thought 
apart  from  the  world  of  real  present  interests  and  events, 
and,  in  the  keen  realisation  of  the  emptiness  of  such  a 
life,  he  longs  for  contact  with  reality,  with  nature,  with 
human  passion,  with  life  in  all  its  forms.     The  revolt  of 
his  eager  unsatisfied  spirit  sends  him  forth  into  the  un- 
tried world  of  common  human  experience,  to  seek  there 
the  satisfaction  which  has  eluded  him  in  his  scholar-life 
of   seclusion  and  stern  thought.     The  new  way  is  easy 
enough ;  it  is  the  broad  smooth  path  of  sensuous  delight, 
and  crowded  with  the  multitude.     If  Faust  can  deliber- 
ately choose  this  life  of  carnal  pleasure,  if  in  it  he  can 
find  the  perfect  satisfaction  of  his  being  and  accept  it  as 
his  portion,  it  will  be  the  definitive  choice  of  evil,  the 
critical  surrender  of  the  higher  to  the  lower  nature.     For 
if  such  sensuousness  of  life  as  that  which  Faust  is  now 
to  put  to  the   proof  leads  inevitably  to  sensuality  and 
what  is  commonly  called  "  vice,"  the   evil   lies  in   the 


238 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


EOD^MONISM. 


239 


sensuousness  itself,  of  which  the  sensuality  is  but  the 
full-blown  flower.  That  a  being  capable  of,  and  there- 
fore called  to,  a  life  of  rational  and  strenuous  activity, 
because  of  the  pain  and  toil  and  disappointment  implied 
in  such  a  life,  should  choose  the  immediate  and  effortless 
delights  of  sensibility,  'Mierein  is  sin."  But  for  Faust 
there  is  no  satisfaction  in  the  new  life  of  which  he  is 
represented  as  making  trial.  When,  first  as  a  black 
poodle,  and  then  as  Mephistopheles  himself,  the  spirit  of 
evil  appears,  we  feel  that  it  is  only  the  manifestation 
and  externalisation  of  the  lower,  undisciplined,  irrational 
nature  which,  in  Faust  as  in  every  man,  is  struggling  for 
the  mastery  with  the  rational  and  higher  Self  :— 

"  Zwei  Seelen  wohnen,  acli !  in  meiner  Brust, 
Die  eine  will  sich  von  der  andern  trennen  ; 
Die  eine  halt,  in  derber  Liebeslust, 
Sich  an  die  Welt,  niit  klammernden  Organen ; 
Die  andre  hebt  gewaltsam  sicli  voni  Dust 
Zu  den  Gefilden  holier  Almen." 

But  though  all  the  glory  of  the  world  is  spread  out  be- 
fore Faust,  and  he  tastes  of  the  lust  of  the  flesh  and  the 
lust  of  the  eye  and  the  pride  of  life,  the  moment  never 
comes  when  he  can  say  of  it: — 

"  Verweile  doch  I  du  bist  so  sclion  ! '"' 

And  deeply  though  he  falls,  we  feel  that,  even  at  the 
lowest,  he  has  fallen  only  to  rise  again,  and,  learning 
the  deeper  dissatisfaction  of  this  new  life,  to  choose  at 
last,  with  a  new  decision  wrought  by  the  strong  hand 
of  a  bitter  experience,  the  higher  way  of  the  victorious 
spirit.  The  lesson  of  the  legend,  or,  at  any  rate,  of  the 
drama,  surely  is,  that  if  a  virtue  cloistered  and  untried 


is  no  virtue  at  all,  yet  all  virtue  contains  self-sacrifice  at 
its  heart,  and  the  only  true  and  complete  self-fulfilment 
is  mediated  and  made  possible  by  self-renunciation. 

"  Und  so  lang  du  das  nicht  hast, 
Dieses  ;  stirb  und  werde  ! 
Bist  du  nur  ein  triiber  Gast 
Auf  der  dunklen  Erde." 

The  imperfection  of  the  Faust  representation  is  that  the 
choice  is  pictured  as  one  between  the  life  of  knowledge  and 
the  life  of  sensuous  pleasure,  though  the  idea  of  effort  or 
labour  as  implied  in  the  former  type  of  life  is  strongly 
emphasised.  In  Wagner's  music-drama  of  Tannhauser, 
we  have,  in  this  respect,  a  more  adequate  portrayal  of  the 
actual  moral  conflict.  Here,  again,  the  choice  is  between 
activity  and  the  delights  of  sensibility.  As  in  the  old 
Homeric  story,  the  Siren-music  of  the  sensuous  life  sounds 
in  the  hero's  ears,  and  he  is  lulled  to  sleep  and  forgetful- 
ness  of  duty  in  the  arms  of  earthly  love.  The  escape  is 
made  with  bitterest  anguish  and  regret ;  again  and  again, 
as  the  magic  song  of  the  Venus-berg  sounds  in  his  ears, 
and  its  voluptuous  strains  silence  the  solemn  music  of  the 
pilgrim-choir,  must  the  conflict  be  waged  anew,  until  at 
last  the  decisive  victory  is  won,  and  the  hard  steep  way 
of  the  pilgrims  of  the  Cross  becomes  the  final  choice. 

And  from  the  first  this  has  been  the  lesson  of  the  pro- 
phets and  didactic  moralists  to  their  fellows.  The  lesson 
of  Ecclesiastes  as  well  as  of  Carlyle  is  the  lesson  of  Work, 
the  lesson  that  in  activity,  in  deeds,  in  the  chastening  of 
natural  impulse  to  the  obedience  of  a  rational  purpose, 
lies  man's  only  Good.  The  ethical  necessity  of  self-dis- 
cipline has  always  been  recognised.     The  Greeks,  though 


240 


THE   MORAL    IDEAL. 


EUD^MONISM. 


241 


they  did  not  feel  the  bitterness  of  the  struggle  as  we  do, 
yet  recognised  it  in  their  central  conception  of  Temperance 
or  Self-control,  of  the  essentially  rational  character  of  the 
virtuous  life,  of  the  "  limifc "  which  the  gods  have  set  to 
the   career   of   man.      In   the  popular  reflection   of   the 
classical  world,  we  find  the  same  thought   naively  ex- 
pressed in  the  myths  of  Fauns  and  Satyrs,— strange  half- 
brute,  half -human  creatures,  non-moral,  and  yet,  through 
their  external  resemblance  to  humanity,  shedding  a  grim 
ironical   light  over  human  life.      We  have   an   impres- 
sive recognition  of   the  same   fundamental  necessity  in 
the  ancient  Hebrew  story  of  Esau,  who,  stung  by  animal 
appetite,  sells  his  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  and 
finds  no  place  of  repentance,  though  he  seeks  it  carefully 
with  tears.    The  Christian  conception  of  temptation,  which 
finds  such  abundant  expression  in  modern  literature,  is  one 
grand  illustration  of  it.     The  character  of  Tito  in  George 
Eliot's  '  Komola,'— the  story  of  the  evolution  of  a  life  that 
has  surrendered  itself  to  momentary  impulse  and  desire, 
of  Markheim  in  Mr  K.  L.  Stevenson's  little  sketch,  and 
many  another  ''  psychological  study  "  in  the  fiction  of  our 
own  and  of  previous  times,  might  be  mentioned  in  drama- 
tic illustration  of  the  possibilities  (and  the  certainties)  of 
evil  that  lie  in  an  "  undisciplined  "  nature.     Shakespeare 
has  given  us  a  unique  and  classical  picture  of  such  a 
being.     The  character  of  Caliban  in  the  "  Tempest "  seems 
to  me  to  be  a  kind  of  redudio  ad  ahsurdum  of  the  life  of 
untrained  impulse.       Caliban  is  an  impersonation  of  a 
human  anwutl,  such  a  monster  as  the  ancient  myths  por- 
trayed, half  man,  half  beast ;  only,  his  deformity  is  rather 
moral  than  physical.    He  is  a  "  thing  "  rather  than  a  man, 


a  "  thing  of  darkness,"  "  as  strange  a  thing  as  e'er  I  look'd 

on."     "  He  is  as  disproportionate  in  his  manners  as  in  his 

shape " ;  an   . 

"  Abhorred  slave, 
"WTiich  any  print  of  goodness  will  not  take, 
Being  capable  of  all  ill." 

He  is 

"  A  devil,  a  born  devil,  on  whose  nature 
Nurture  can  never  stick.  .  .  . 
And  as,  with  age,  his  body  uglier  grows, 
So  his  mind  cankers." 

Prospero  has  taught  him  language  : 

"  You  taught  me  language,  and  my  profit  on't 
Is,  I  know  how  to  curse." 

So  savage,  rank,  and  repulsive,  so  full  of  all  manner 
of  darkness  and  evil,  is  undisciplined  "  nature  " — not 
beautiful  and  richly  luxurious  as  physical  nature  is, 
when  left  untended  and  untrained.  An  untrained  man — 
Shakespeare  would  seem  to  teach  us — is  a  "  monster  "  of 
humanity,  not  worthy  of  the  name,  something  between 
man  and  beast  rather  than  a  man.  If  sometimes  we  dis- 
parage the  effects  of  civilisation  and  education,  and  long 
for  "  a  touch  of  nature "  in  its  simplicity  and  untrained 
directness,  let  us  remember  that  human  nature,  left  to 
itself,  in  its  native  spontaneity,  is  a  barren  wilderness  that 
yields  but  tares  and  thorns,  and  cannot  be  made  to  bring 
forth  better  fruits,  but  with  the  sweat  of  our  brow,  and 
the  hard  labour  of  the  spirit ; 

"  That  life  is  not  as  idle  ore, 
But  iron  dug  from  central  gloom, 

And  heated  hot  with  burning  fears, 

And  dipt  in  baths  of  hissing  tears, 
And  hatter'd  with  the  shocks  of  doom' 

Q 


^ 


242 


THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


EUD^MONISM. 


243 


To  shape  and  use.     Arise  and  fly 
The  reeling  Faun,  the  sensual  feast ; 
Move  upward,  working  out  the  beast, 

And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die."  ^ 

Or,  as  another  of  "  our  own  poets "  has  finely  expressed 
the  contrast  between  Nature's  life  and  man's  :— 

"With  aching  hands  and  bleeding  feet 
We  dig  and  heap,  lay  stone  on  stone  ; 
We  bear  the  burden  and  the  heat 
Of  the  long  day,  and  wish  't^vere  done. 
Not  till  the  hours  of  light  return. 
All  we  have  built  do  w^e  discern. 

Then,  when  the  clouds  are  off  the  soul, 

When  thou  dost  bask  in  Nature's  eye, 

Ask,  how  she  viewed  thy  self-control. 

Thy  struggling,  task'd  morality- 
Nature,  whose  free,  light,  cheerful  air. 
Oft  made  thee,  in  thy  gloom,  despair. 

And  she,  whose  censure  thou  dost  dread. 

Whose  eye  thou  wast  afraid  to  seek, 

See,  on  her  face  a  glow  is  spread, 

A  strong  emotion  on  her  cheek  ! 

*  Ah,  child  !'  she  cries,  that  strife  divine. 
Whence  was  it,  for  it  is  not  mine  ? "  - 

Yet  "  Nature  "  has  her  rights ;  the  moral  Person  is  to 
the  end  an  individual  or  subject  of  sensibility.  Nature  is 
to  be  disciplined,  not  annihilated.  And  if  nature  has  to 
be  moralised,  it  is  not  in  itself  immoral ;  it  does  not  even 
necessarily  conflict  with  morality.  It  is  only  because  it 
is  part  of  a  higher  "  nature "  in  us  that  it  is  not  itself 
the  guide.     The  lower  nature  is  really  the  "  footstool  of 

1  Tennyson,  'In  Memoriam,'  118. 

2  Matthew  Arnold,  '  Poems ' :  "  Morality." 


the  higher."      It  is  in  its  rebellion  against  the  law  of 
the  higher    nature  that   evil   consists;   evil  is,  as  Plato 
taught,   a   rebellion   or   insurrection   of    the   lower    and 
subject  element  against  the  higher   and  sovereign  part 
of  the  soul.     It  is  when  the  citadel  of  our  nature  capitu- 
lates to  the  enemy  within  the  city  of  Mansoul  that  evil 
is  done ;  it  is  when  reason  becomes  the  slave  of  passion 
that  we  lose  our  crown,  and  sell  our  birthright.      The 
Eomanticists,  the  Eealists,  the  Sentimentalists  of  litera- 
ture have,  as  George  Meredith  says,i  got  hold  of  a  half- 
truth,  "  the  melodists  upon  life  and  the  world  "  who  "  set 
a  sensual  world  in  motion  "  and  " '  fiddle  harmonics  on  the 
strings  of  sensualism,'  to  the  delight  of  a  world  gaping  for 
marvels  of  musical  execution  rather  than  for  music."     As 
some  one  has  said  of  M.  Zola,  he  "sees  in  humanity  la 
Ute  Immaine.     He  sees  the  beast  in  all  its  transforma- 
tions, but  he  sees  only  the  beast."     For  the  music  and 
deep  harmony  of  human  life  has  its  keynote  in  reason, 
and,  like  all  other  harmonies,  is  reached  through  discord. 
"  Our  world  is  all  but  a  sensational  world  at  present,  in 
maternal  travail  of  a  soberer,  a  braver,  a  brighter-eyed. 
Peruse   your  Eealists  —  really  your  castigators  for  not 
having  yet  embraced  philosophy.     As  she  grows  in  the 
flesh,  when  discreetly  tended,  Nature  is  unimpeachable, 
flower-like,  yet  not  too  decoratively  a  flower;  you  must 
have  her  with  the  stem,  the  thorns,  the  roots,  and  the  fat 
bedding  of  roses."     The  secret  of  true  human  living,  the 
heart  of  ethical  Truth,  lies  in  "  the  right  use  of  the  Senses, 
Eeality's  infinite  sweetness.     There  is  in  every  one  of  us 
a  Caliban  nature,  an  unfailing  aboriginal  democratic  old 

^  Introduction  to  '  Diana  of  the  Crossways. ' 


M  i 


244 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL. 


monster,  that  waits   to   pull    us    down ;    certainly    the 
branch,  possibly  the  tree ;   and  for  the  welfare  of  Life 
we  fall    ...  You  must  turn  on  yourself,  resolutely  track 
and  seize  that  burrower,  and  scrub   and   cleanse   him." 
Civilisation  contributes  to  the  cleansing  process;   it  at 
least  keeps  the  "  monster  "  well  out  of  sight.     But  Nature 
must  be  moralised,  and  the  process  of  moralisation  is  one 
of  sore  pain  and  travail.     It  may  mean  the  cuttmg  off  ot 
a  ricTht  hand  and  the  plucking  out  of  a  right  eye,  that  so 
we  may  enter,  even  halt  and  maimed,  into  the  kingdom 
of   the  Good.     It  means  the  passing  through  the   fiery 
furnace,  by  which  Nature  is  purified  of  dross  and  "hard- 
ened  into  the  pure  ore."      It  means,  as  Plato  already 
said,  "  conversion,"  or  "  the  turning  round  of  the  eye  ot 
the  soul,  and  with  it  the  whole  soul,  to  the  Good."     Man  s 
life  is  like  that  of  the  Phcenix,  that  rises  out  of  its  own 
ashes ;  if  he  would  live  the  true  human  life,  he  must  be 
"  born  acrain  from  above."    Into  every  element  of  natural 
impulse^and  desire  must  be  breathed  the  new  life  of  the 

rational  spirit. 

"  The  petals  of  to-day, 
To-morrow  fallen  away, 
Shall  something  leave  instead, 
To  live  when  they  are  dead ; 
When  you,  ye  vague  desires, 
Have  vanished ; 
A  something  to  survive, 
Of  you  though  it  derive 
Apparent  earthly  birth, 
But  of  far  other  worth 
Than  you,  ye  vague  desires, 
Than  you."  ^ 

1  A.  H.  Clough. 


EUD^MONISM. 


245 


The  same  lesson,  that  "  from  flesh  unto  spirit  man  grows," 
is  finely  enforced  by  Matthew  Arnold : 

"  Know,  man  hath  all  which  Nature  hath,  but  more. 
And  in  that  more  lie  all  his  hopes  of  good. 
Man  must  begin,  know  this,  where  Nature  ends ; 
Nature  and  man  can  never  be  fast  friends. 
Fool,  if  thou  canst  not  pass  her,  rest  her  slave  ! " 

l^erhaps  one  of  the  completest  descriptions  of  the 
ethical  life,  at  least  in  English  literature,  is  that  which 
Browning  has  given  us  in  his  famous  "  Eabbi  Ben  Ezra." 
In  this  poem,  it  will  be  remembered,  age  is  represented 
as  taking  account  of  the  total  gain  and  loss  of  life,  reckon- 
ing up  its  final  significance  under  the  illumination  of 

"  The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  first  was  made." 

And  the  element  of  value  is  found  just  in  that  doubt 
and  strife,  that  failure  and  pain,  which  had  been  such 
mysteries  to  youth  with  its  eager  thirst  for  pleasure  and 
the  satisfaction  of  the  moment : — 

"  Rather  I  prize  the  doubt 
Low  kinds  exist  without. 

Finished  and  finite  clods,  untroubled  by  a  spark. 
Poor  vaunt  of  life  indeed. 
Were  man  but  formed  to  feed 
On  joy,  to  solely  seek  and  find  and  feast ; 
Such  feasting  ended,  then 
As  sure  an  end  to  men  ; 
Irks  care  the  crop-full  bird?    Frets  doubt  the  maw-crammed 

beast  1 
Then  welcome  each  rebuff 
That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 
Each  sting  that  bids  not  sit  nor  stand  but  go ! 
Be  our  joys  three-fourths  pain! 
Strive,  and  hold  cheap  the  strain; 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang ;  dare,  never  grudge  the  throe  ! " 


246 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL. 


And  as,  in  the  quiet  evening  light,  he  meditates  upon 
the  meaning  of  that  life  whose  day  is  now  far  spent,  its 
real  worth  breaks  in  clear  and  definite  outline  upon  his 


vision  :- 


"  He  fixed  thee  'mid  this  dance 
Of  plastic  circumstance, 

This  Present,  thou,  forsooth,  wouldest  fain  arrest : 
Machinery  just  meant 
To  give  thy  soul  its  bent, 
Try  thee,  and  turn  thee  forth,  sufficiently  impressed." 


PART   11. 


THE    MORAL    LIFE 


THE   MORAL  LIFE. 


The  chief  forms  into  which  the  good  life  differentiates 
itself  are  called  by  the  ancients  the  cardinal  virtues,  by 
the  moderns  the  table  of  duties.  These  two  terms,  Virtue 
and  Duty,  are  two  modes  of  describing  the  same  thing ; 
the  former  emphasises  the  inner  character  and  its  funda- 
mental excellences,  the  latter  the  expression  of  character 
in  conduct  and  the  primary  forms  of  that  expression. 
Whether  we  look  at  the  moral  life  from  the  standpoint 
of  character  or  of  conduct,  we  find  it  necessary  to  inter- 
pret it  as  an  indissoluble  unity.  One  cannot  have  any 
of  the  virtues  without  possessing  in  that  measure  all 
the  others,  one  cannot  fulfil  any  duty  without  fulfil- 
ling in  that  measure  all  the  other  duties.  The  several 
virtues  and  duties  are  simply  the  several  aspects  of  the 
good  life,  the  various  colours  into  which  the  perfect  spec- 
trum of  character  or  conduct  can  be  analysed ;  or,  at  the 
most,  they  are  the  several  stages  in  the  development 
of  character  and  conduct,  and  each  leads  inevitably  be- 
yond itself  to  the  next  as  the  goal  of  its  own  perfection. 
Two  main  aspects  of  the  moral  life  may  be  emphasised — 
the  individual  and  the  social ;  but  the  unity  of  these  is 


Introduc- 
tory.    Vir- 
tues and 
Duties. 
The  Unity 
of  the 
Moral  Life. 


250 


THE   MORAL   LIFE. 


apparent  when  we  remember  that  both  may  be  subsumed 
under  the  common  term  "  personal."     The  individual  can- 
not be  true  to  his  own  personality  without  being  true  to 
the  personality  of  all  whom  his  conduct  in  any  way  affects. 
To  stand  in  the  right  relation  to  oneself  is  to  stand  in 
the  right  relation  to  one's  fellows ;  to  realise  one's  own 
true  self  is  to  help  all  others  to  the  same  self-realisation. 
Again,  we  may  divide  the  virtues  and  the  corresponding 
duties' into  negative  and  positive  groups.    From  the  stand- 
point of  the  individual,  the  moral  life  may  be  regarded  as 
a  life  at  once  of  Self-discipline  and  of  Self-development, 
resulting  in  the  virtues  of  Temperance  and  of  Culture. 
But  the^'perfectly  temperate  or  self-disciplined  man  would 
be  also  the  man  of  perfect  culture  or  self-development. 
Similarly,  from  the  standpoint  of  society,  we  may  distin- 
guish the  negative  aspect  of  morality  from  the  positive,— 
the  duty  of  Freedom  or  non-interference  with  the  self- 
realisation  of   others,  with  the   corresponding  virtue   of 
Justice,   from  the    duty   of    Fraternity   or   the   positive 
helping  of  others  in  their  efforts  after  their  own  perfec- 
tion, with  the  corresponding  virtue  of  Benevolence.     Here 
again  it  is  obvious  that  we  have  only  two  aspects  of  a 
sFngle   life,  that   Justice   imperceptibly  glides   into  Be- 
nevolence, Freedom  into  Fraternity ;  that  the  one  is  the 
seed,  the  other  the  full-blown  flower  of  the  same  ethical 
quality     Without  Justice  there  can  be  no  true  Benevo- 
lence, and  Justice  made  perfect  is  already  Benevolence  in 


«]ferm. 


251 


CHAPTEE    I. 

THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 

I. — Temperance  or  Self -discipline. 
1.  This  is  the  first  necessity  of  the   moral  life ;   it  is  its  funda- 

mental  im- 

essential  to  the  constitution  of  Virtue.     The  very  essence  portance. 

of  morality  is,  we  have  seen,  the  establishment  of  the 

order  of  reason  in  the  chaos   of  natural   impulse;   and 

the  reign  of  reason  means  the  subjection  and  obedience 

of  sensibility.     Character  is  "  nature  "  disciplined.     The 

mastery   of    natural   impulse    by   reason,   in    such   wise 

that   this   original   "  stream   of  tendency "   may  become 

the  dynamic  of  rational  purpose ;  the  conversion  of  the 

original  irrational  energy  into  an  energy  of  reason  itself ; 

"  the  organisation  of  impulse  into  character," — this  may 

be  said  to  be  the  essential  business  of  the  moral  life  from 

first  to  last.     Out  of  our  natural  individuality  we  have 

each  to  form  a  moral  personality.     The  original  or  natural 

self  is  non-moral,  and  must  be  moralised.    To  be  moralised, 

it  must  be  disciplined,  regulated,  subdued ;  for  only  so  can 

it  be  organised  into  the  structure  of  a  rational  life.     If 

the  sphere  of  sensibility  is  to  be  finally  annexed  by  reason, 

it  must  first  be  conquered,  and  this  conquest  of  the  self 


i 


\ 


252 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


of  natural  sensibility  by  the  rational  self  is  Temperance. 
For  the  heedless,  partial,  natural  self  is  apt  to  rebel  against 
the  regulation  of  reason,  it  wants  to  rule  ;  and  the  "  right " 
of  reason  has  to  become  the  "might"  of  a  rationalised 
sensibility.  The  interest  of  the  total  Self,  which  reason 
alone  can  discover,  has  to  be  asserted  and  maintained 
against  the  interest  of  the  partial,  fleeting,  but  clamant 
self  of  sensibility.  This  general  Purpose  or  End,  chosen 
deliberately  and  reflectively,  must  be  resolutely  main- 
tained against  the  particular,  momentary  or  habitual,  im- 
pulsive tendencies  which  would  swamp  it  in  the  flood- 
tide  of  their  power,  and,  if  unchecked,  would  make  us 
act  as  if  that  Purpose  did  not  exist,  and  had  not  been 
chosen.  Intemperance  is  disintegration,  or  disorganisa- 
tion ;  it  is  the  rule  of  unorganised  or  disorganised  sensi- 
bility. Its  watchword  is  self-gratification  or  self-indul- 
gence. The  temperate  life,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  whole 
in  its  every  part ;  if  you  take  a  "  section "  of  it  at  any 
point,  you  discover  in  it  the  structure  of  the  whole,  the 
partial  expression  and  realisation  of  its  total  purpose. 
All  its  energies  are  controlled  from  a  common  centre, 
they  are  the  different  manifestations  of  one  great  energy 
of  goodness.  Such  a  life  is  consistent  and  harmonious 
with  itself;  it  has  the  calm  strength  of  a  resolute  and 
even  Purpose.  But  this  harmony  and  strength  are  the 
reward  of  a  resolute  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice. 

No  natural  impulse  is  in  itself  evil,  no  element  of 
sensibility  is,  as  such,  immoral.  Evil  or  immorality 
arises  only  when  the  government  of  conduct  is  given 
to  un-moralised  sensibility.  Sensibility  needs  the  edu- 
cation of  reason,  before  it  is  capable  of  government;  it 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


253 


must  itself  be  governed,  before  it  is  fitted  to  govern.  Not 
that  there  may  not  be  a  certain  system  in  a  life  controlled 
by  uneducated  sensibility.  The  life  of  the  miser  or  of 
the  man  who  is  ambitious  for  mere  power  is,  so  far,  a 
systematic  and  coherent  life,  though  it  is  under  the 
dominion  of  a  single  uncontrolled  passion.  But  its 
system,  we  recognise  at  once,  is  not  the  true  system; 
even  the  man  himself  would  hardly  acknowledge  it  as 
the  system  of  his  life,  and  his  deeper  and  better  nature 
will  probably  assert  itself  occasionally,  and  break  up  the 
little  system  of  his  short-sighted  purpose.  In  such  a  life 
the  part  has  claimed  to  be  the  whole ;  and  the  result  is 
necessarily  partial,  "  abstract,"  contradictory.  The  true 
whole  is  the  unity  of  all  the  parts;  and  that  it  may  be 
constituted,  every  selfish  impulse  must  submit  to  the 
control  of  the  rational  Self,  which  alone  can  estimate  the 
relative  and  permanent  value  of  each.  Most  commonly, 
the  absence  of  such  true  system  and  completeness  is 
revealed  in  the  obviously  and  painfully  self-contradictory, 
fragmentary,  and  inconsistent  character  of  the  intem- 
perate life,  in  its  too  evident  want  of  unity.  The  main 
stream  of  its  Purpose  is  drained  off  into  side  currents  and 
eddies,  and  many  a  time  is  checked  and  turned  by  an 
undercurrent  running  in  the  opposite  direction. 

2.  The  virtue  of  Temperance  or  the  duty  of  Self-disci-  its  nega- 

tive  aspect. 

pline  has  two  aspects — a  negative  and  a  positive.  J^irst, 
negatively,  it  is  the  subjection  of  all  impulse  to  the  rule 
of  rational  choice,  the  not  being  brought  under  the  power 
of  any  tendency  of  our  nature,  the  setting  to  each  its 
measure  and  limit  by  making  it  an  element  in  a  coherent 


254 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


and  systematic  rational  life.      In  general,  however,  one 
particular  impulse  or  set  of  impulses  represents  the  prin- 
ciple of  disintegration  in  the  individual ;  the  forces  of  the 
rebel  nature  are  concentrated  at  some  one  point  or  at 
a  few  points.     That  impulse  represents  evil  for  the  man ; 
at  that  point  the  battle  must  be  fought,  there  it  must  be 
lost  or  won.     The  struggle  is  not  with  evil  in  general,  or 
with  nature  in  the  abstract ;  it  is  with  this  particular  form 
of  evil,  it  is  with  our  own  nature,  or  "  besetting  sin."     The 
drunkard's  struggle  is  with  the  appetite  for  drink;  he 
must  master  that  appetite,  or  it  will  master  him.     The 
miser's  struggle  is  with  cupidity,  the  lazy  and  luxurious 
nature's  is  with  its  love  of  ease.     In  other  words,  the 
task  is  always  one  of  self-conquest,  and  as  the  natural 
self  of  each  is  different  from  that  of  his  neighbour,  the 
moral  task  is  always  quite  concrete  and  individual.   What 
is  temperance  for  one  is  intemperance  for  another;  the 
j\Iean  for  one  is  for  another  excess ;  where  one  walks  in 
perfect  safety,  another  may  not  trust  himself  to  walk  at  all. 
Here  we  see  the  truth  of  Asceticism.     Self-discipline  is, 
for  each,  self-denial  or  self-sacrifice.     The  individuality 
must  be  subdued  to  the  rational  personality,  and  the  per- 
fect subjection  of  individuality  may,  and  often  does,  mean 
the  absolute  denial,  at  some  point,  of  its  right  to  live.    If 
a  natural  impulse  claims  us  as  exclusively  its  own,  en- 
slaves us,  and  its  indulgence  at  all  means  for  us  its  im- 
moderate indulgence— if ,  unless  it  is  kept  below  its  normal 
level  it  will  inevitably  rise  above  it,— the  necessity  is  laid 
upon  us  to  deny  that  impulse,  to  starve  it,  and,  it  may 
be,  even  to  kill  it  outright.    Better  to  enter  into  the  moral 
life  halt  and  maimed,  if  we  cannot  enter  whole  and  sound, 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


255 


than  not  to  enter  at  all ;  it  may  be  profitable  for  us  that 
one  of  our  members  perish,  that  some  particular  passion 
or  appetite  be  denied  indulgence  altogether,  because  mod- 
erate indulgence  of  it  is  for  us  impossible.  Thus,  while 
Temperance  is  moderation,  not  abstinence,  abstinence  may 
be  to  the  individual  the  only  means  to  moderation ;  and 
the  ascetic  principle  of  "  keeping  the  body  under,"  lest  it 
rebel  aojainst  the  rule  of  reason,  is  a  safe  ethical  maxim 
for  the  avera^je  man. 

The  concrete  and  individual  character  of  self-discipline 
illustrates  the  importance,  and  even  the  necessity,  of  self- 
knowledge.  A  man  is  his  own  worst  enemy.  None  can 
do  him  such  dire  injury  as  that  which  he  can  inflict  upon 
himself.  If  he  would  discover  the  enemy  in  his  ambush, 
therefore,  he  must  carefully  explore  and  spy  out  the  secret 
places  of  his  own  nature.  He  must  discover  his  peculiar 
bias,  and  watch  keenly  its  growing  or  decreasing  strength. 
He  must  often  "recollect  himself,"  and  reckon  up  the 
gain  and  loss,  the  victory  and  defeat,  in  this  inner  com- 
bat with  himself.  And  he  must  act  in  the  light  of  this 
knowledge,  with  all  the  prudence  of  a  general  who  cal- 
culates nicely  the  forces  of  the  enemy  and  compares  their 
numbers  with  his  own. 

3.  This  negative  side  of  self-discipline,  this  work  of  Relation  of 
mere  subjection  of  natural  sensibility,  is,  we  all  know,  a  positive  as- 
much  larger  part  of  some  lives  than  of  others.  In  some 
the  sensibility  seems  so  to  lend  itself  from  the  first  to  the 
wise  control  of  reason  that  there  is  little  consciousness  of 
struggle  or  control  at  all.  Such  a  moral  career  seems  a 
pretty  even  tenor  of  goodness ;  its  fair  Elysian  fields  are 


'I 


256 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


never  stained  with  the  blood  of  battle,  its  quiet  peace  is 
hardly  broken  with  the  noise  of  tumult  or  rebellion.  Such 
well-tempered  natures  have  the  more  energy  to  spare  for 
the  task  of  positive  virtue ;  and  to  whom  much  is  given,  of 
them  is  much  required.  Others  wage  a  bitter  and  life- 
long struggle  against  some  natural  tendency  which,  with 
their  utmost  efforts,  they  can  only  keep  in  subjection; 
these  have  little  energy  left  for  positive  virtue.  For  them, 
however,  to  whom  so  little  is  given,  a  little  of  positive 
accomplishment  may  be  much ;  for  moral  accomplishment 
is  achieved  in  the  sphere  of  character,  and  its  significance 
is  necessarily  relative  and  individual. 

Kor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that  positive  and  self- 
forgetting  activity,  the  devotion  of  one's  entire  energy 
to  some  disinterested  end,  is  one  of  the  best  means  of 
deliverance  from  the  slavery  of  individual  impulse. 
The  true  self  -  discipline  is  inevitably  positive  as  well 
as  negative.  The  most  perfect  mastery  of  impulse 
comes  with  the  guidance  of  all  its  energy  into  the 
path  of  our  positive  life-purpose.  Temperance  is  not 
mere  negation  or  annihilation  of  impulse,  it  is  its 
co-ordination  and  control:  and  the  characteristic  im- 
pulsive energy  of  the  individual  ought  to  be  utilised  in 
the  interest  of  the  total  purpose  of  the  life.  The  only 
final  subjugation  of  sensibility  comes  with  its  transmutation 
into  the  enthusiasm  of  some  great  end.  Sensibility  has 
then  become  organic  to  reason,  it  is  then  the  dynamic  of 
the  rational  life,  and  the  danger  of  insurrection  has  almost 
disappeared.  It  is  from  idle  impulse  that  there  is  danger ; 
impulse  which  has  its  work  assigned  it  by  reason  soon 
becomes  reason's  willing  servant.     The  strongest  natures 


THE    INDIVIDUAL   LIFE. 


257 


are  always  natures  of  strong  impulse,  mastered  and  sub- 
dued to  the  unity  of  a  purpose  which  has  possessed  their 
entire  being.  The  individuality  has  all  passed  into  the 
personality ;  the  fire  of  a  consuming  purpose  has  purified 
the  dull  ore  of  all  their  natural  sensibilities.  The  search 
for  truth  is  the  passion  of  a  Socrates  and  a  N'ewton ;  all 
the  energy  of  a  Luther's  nature  goes  into  the  task  of 
reformation.  Not  till  the  depths  of  the  moral  being  are 
thus  stirred,  and  all  the  energy  of  its  native  passion 
captivated  by  rational  purpose,  is  the  work  of  self-dis- 
cipline made  perfect. 

4.  Thus  we  have  reached  the  second  and  positive  aspect  its  positive 
of  Temperance — viz.,  concentration  or  unity  of  purpose,  ^^^^^  * 
self -limitation.      Our  natural  impulsive  energy  must  be 
guided  along  a  single  path  ;    the   original   tendency  to 
diffusion    must    be    checked.       Diffusion    means    waste, 
economy  of  power  implies  limitation  and  definiteness  of 
direction.      The  strong  and  effective  man  is  always  the 
man  of  one  idea,  of  one  book,  the  specialist,  whether  in 
the  intellectual  or  in  other  activities,  the  man  who  has 
one  consuming  interest  in  life — a  master-interest  and  en- 
thusiasm which  has  subdued  all  others  to  itself.     Unity, 
simplicity,  singleness  of  purpose — the  correlation  and  in- 
tegration of  all  the  tendencies  of  the  individual  nature — 
this  is  the  mark  of  a  perfectly  temperate,  a  thoroughly 
disciphned  life.     The  forces  of  the  nature  are  not  merely 
checked  and  conquered ;  they  are  engaged  in  the  service  of 
an  end  which  can  utilise  them  all,  and  whose  service  is 
perfect  freedom  from  the  bondage  of  mere  unregulated 
impulse.     Here  again  we  see  the  need  of  self-knowledge ; 

B 


Mi 


I 


i 


258 


THE   MORAL    LIFE. 


Its  funda- 
mental im- 
portance. 


we  need  to  know  the  positive,  as  well  as  the  negative, 
significance  of  our  individuality.  And  such  a  knowledge 
of^what  we  can  do  is  at  the  same  time  a  knowledge  of  what 
we  cannot  do :  a  knowledge  of  our  individual  capacity  is  at 
the  same  lime  a  knowledge  of  our  individual  limitation. 


II. — Culture  or  Self -development, 

5.  The  fundamental  "  importance  of  a  man  to  himself " 
has  been  made  the  corner-stone  of  their  theory  of  life  by 
all  the  great  moralists,  as  it  has  been  made  the  recurring 
note  in  the  preaching  of  all  the  great  moral  teachers. 
Socrates  insists  hardly  less  strenuously  than  Jesus  upon 
the  supreme  value  of  the  individual  soul  and  the  prime 
duty  of  caring  for  it.     It  was  Christianity,  however,  that 
first  brought  home  to  the  general  consciousness  of  man- 
kind the  idea  of  the  salvation  of  the  Self,  not  from  punish- 
ment, but  from  sin ;  the  conviction  that  the  true  Good  is  to 
be  found  in  inner  excellence  of  character ;  the  thought  of 
the  treasure  which  is  laid  up  "  where  neither  moth  nor 
rust  doth  corrupt,"  in  the  inner  chambers  of  the  spiritual 
being.    What  a  hold  this  idea  took  of  the  Middle  Age,  and 
how  it  produced  the  monastic  life,  with  its  preoccupation 
with  the  anatomy  of  spiritual  states,  its  morbid  self-con- 
scious pietism,  we  all  know.     We  are  also  familiar  with 
the  narrower  and  more  superficial  self-consciousness  of 
the  man  of  "  culture "  and  the  aesthete,  as  well  as  with 
the  equally  foolish  self-concern  of  the  pedant  who  would 
fain  be  a  scholar.      These  are  instances  of  the  obvious 
over-development  of  self-consciousness  and  self-concern. 
Better  far  to  forget  oneself  than  to  be  thus  ever  mind- 


THE   INDIVIDUAL   LIFE. 


259 


ful ;  better  to  be  caught  nodding,  like  Jove  himself,  than 
to  be  always  thus  painfully  on  the  alert.  There  is  an 
unconscious  -self-development  which  is  often  the  best. 
But  these  are  only  exaggerations  of  the  essential  and 
fundamental  virtue,  the  common  root  of  all'  the  rest. 
We  must  never  really  forget,  in  all  the  various  "busi- 
ness" of  life,  that  man's  "proper  business"  is  with 
himself,  that  his  grand  concern  is  the  culture  of  his  own 
nature,  the  development  of  his  best  and  total  Self.  And 
since  all  so-called  "  business  "  is,  in  this  sense,  more  or  less 
distracting,  we  have  need  of  leisure  from  its  care  and 
trouble  for  self-recollection,  leisure  to  be  with  ourselves, 
to  he  ourselves.  For  we  are  not  to  perfect  ourselves  merely 
as  instruments  for  the  production  of  results,  however  good. 
A  man's  true  "work"  is  that  "activity  of  the  soul" 
(ivipyeLa  -^fx^?),  which  is  its  own  sufficient  end,  the 
actualisation  and  development  of  the  man's  true  "  soul " 
or  self.  The  "  utilitarian  "  estimate  of  education  is  essen- 
tially superficial ;  it  is  the  estimate  of  the  Philistine  who 
asks  always  for  the  "practical"  value  of  culture,  and 
thereby  shows  that  he  does  not  know  what  culture  is. 
The  true  "  practice  "  of  a  human  being  is  not  that  in  which 
he  discharges  best  a  task  which  has  no  essential  relation 
to  himself ;  it  is  that  which  calls  forth  and  develops  all  his 
human  powers,  the  ma^i  in  the  man. 

6.  I  have  said  that  it  is  the  total  Self  that  is  to  be  de-  Meaning  of 
veloped,  the  intellectual,  the  emotional,  and  the  active  or  ^'^^''''' 
volitional  elements,  each  in  its  perfection,  and  all  in  the 
harmony  of  a  complete  and  single  life.     Culture  means 
not  merely  the  cultivation  of  the  several  capacities,  but 


260 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


the  symmetrical  development  of  all.     As  in  the  physical 
organism  the  health  of  each  member  depends  upon  the 
health  of  the  organism  as  a  whole,  so  the  true  development 
of  any  part  of  our  nature  implies  the  concurrent  develop- 
ment of  all  the  other  parts.    The  defective  character  of  the 
"  intellectual  "  man,  whose  emotional  nature  is  atrophied 
and  whose  undue  reflection  has  wellnigh  incapacitated  him 
for  practical  activity  ;  of  the  "  man  of  feeling,"  who  has 
forgotten  how  to  think  or  to  act ;  of  the  "  practical "  man, 
who  has  no  time  for  thought,  and  to  whom,  perhaps,  the 
emotional  life  seems  a  weakness  or  a  luxury  which  he  can- 
not afford  himself— is  matter  of  common  observation.    It  is 
perhaps  not  so  commonly  realised  that  true  intellectual  cul- 
ture itself  implies  the  culture  of  the  emotions,  if  not  also 
of  the  will,  that  true  cTsthetic  culture  implies  the  culture 
both  of  will  and  intellect,  and,  above  all,  that  the  best 
activity  is  the  outcome  of  the  largest  thought  and  the 
deepest  and  warmest  sensibility.     In  all  spheres,  the  key- 
note of  true  culture  is  symmetrical  self -development. 

Tiie  place  7.  The  relation  of  physical  to  ethical  well-being  is  apt 
cuituS!'"^  to  be  misconceived.  It  is  that  of  means  to  end  ;  physical 
well-being  is  not  an  integral  part  of  the  ethical  End, 
though  it  is  perhaps  the  most  important  means  towards 
the  realisation  of  that  End.  Health  is  the  basis  of  the 
moral  life,  it  is  no  part  of  that  life  itself.  The  body  is 
only  the  instrument  or  organ  of  a  life  which  is,  in  its 
essence,  spiritual.  It  becomes  a  duty  to  care  for  the  body, 
but  this  care  is  only  part  of  our  care  for  the  soul  or  the 
spiritual  Self.  My  body  is  mine,  it  is  not  /.  To  make 
physical  well-being  an  end-in-itself^js  to  forget  that  animal 


THE   INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


261 


perfection  is  no  worthy  end  for  a  rational  being.  It  is  the 
ends  for  which  the  human  mind  can  use  the  body  that 
give  the  human  body  its  peculiar  dignity;  and  if  man 
makes  the  mind  the  minister  of  the  body's  perfection,  he 
is  reversing  their  true  ethical  relation.  Matthew  Arnold 
has  wisely  and  well  criticised  the  popular  estimate  of 
physical  health  as  an  end-in-itself ;  ^  it  is  that  for  the  77iere 
animal,  but  it  cannot  properly  be  that  for  man.  "  Physical 
culture  "  is  not  an  integral  part  of  "  ethical  culture." 

As  a  means  towards  the  attainment  of  the  ethical  End, 
as  the  basis  of  the  moral  life,  the  importance  of  physical 
well-being  can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  Self-preservation 
and  self-development  are,  in  this  sense,  always  primarily 
the  preservation  and  development  of  the  physical  life.  I 
must  live,  in  order  to  live  well ;  and  my  power  of  realis- 
ing my  moral  purposes  will  be  largely  determined  by  my 
physical  health.  The  ethical  value  of  life,  both  in  its 
length  and  in  its  breadth,  in  the  duration  and  in  the 
richness  of  its  activities,  is  to  a  considerable  extent  within 
our  own  power,  being  determined  by  our  care  or  neglect 
of  the  body.  To  despise  the  body,  or  to  seek  to  escape 
from  it,  as  the  ascetic  does,  is  as  wrong  as  it  is  futile. 
The  body  is  the  main  condition  of  the  moral  life,  its  very 
element  and  atmosphere ;  and  the  athletic  exaggeration  of 
the  importance  of  the  body,  like  the  estimate  of  "  clean- 
liness" as  not  even  ''next  to  godliness,"  is  probably,  in 
the  main,  a  not  unnatural  reaction  from  the  ascetic  ex- 
treme of  contempt  and  neglect  fostered  by  Puritan  tra- 
dition. Above  all,  it  is  obvious  that  if  care  for  the  body 
is  an  important  although  an  indirect  duty,  the  destruction 

^  See  '  Culture  and  Anarchy,'  21. 


262 


THE    MORAL   LIFE. 


|i 


of  the  physical  life,  or  suicide,  is  an  exceeding  great  sin. 
Our  moral  life  being  physically  conditioned,  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  body  is  an  indirect  attack  upon  that  life 
itself.  Suicide,  being  self-destruction  (so  far  as  that  is 
possible  to  us),  must  always  contradict  the  fundamental 
ethical  principle  of  self-development. 

Health  is  only  part  of  that  individual  good  which  is, 
as  such,  subordinate  to  the  personal  good,  and  has  only 
an  instrumental  value.  Like  money  and  position,  social 
or  official,  it  is  part  of  our  moral  "  opportunity."  But  we 
have  seen  that  the  prudential  life,  whose  concern  is  with 
the  opportunity  rather  than  with  the  exercise  of  virtue, 
does  not  coexist  alongside  the  life  of  virtue,  but  is 
organic  to  that  life.  It  would  perhaps  be  helpful  to 
ckar  ethical  thinking  to  make  the  term  Prudence  cover 
the  instrumental  or  the  " occasional"— those  aspects  of 
human  life  which,  like  physical  health,  pecuniary  affairs, 
worldly  position,  or  office,  have  in  themselves  no  moral 
significance,  but  acquire  such  a  significance  through  their 
being  the  physical  basis  of  the  virtuous  life. 

The  indi.  8.  We  have  seen  that  self  -  development  means  the 
Ssd"f-  development  of  individuality  into  personality,  that  the 
develop-  ^^^g^^  ^g  always  an  individual.  It  is  essential  to  true 
self  -  development,  therefore,  that  the  individuality  be 
conserved,  not  destroyed.  Many  factors  of  our  modern 
civilisation  tend  to  substitute  monotonous  and  dead  uni- 
formity for  the  living  and  interesting  diversity  of  indi- 
vidual nature.  Specialisation  is  apt  to  dwarf  the  individ- 
uality ;  political  and  other  forms  of  social  organisation 
tend  in  the  same  direction.     We  are  much  more  apt  than 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


263 


our  forefathers  to  imitate  others,  and  to  be  unwilling  to 
be  ourselves.  Yet  it  is  clear  that  vocation  is  determined 
chiefly  by  individual  aptitude,  though  modified  by  the 
pressure  of  circumstances.  The  true  "  career  "  for  a  man 
is  that  which  shall  most  fully  realise  his  individuality. 
Fortunate  indeed  is  he  to  whom  a  thorou^jh  understanding 
of  his  own  nature  and  an  appropriate  course  of  circum- 
stances open  up  the  path  of  such  a  career.  To  too  many 
their  so-called  career  is  a  mere  routine,  a  "  business  "  for 
their  hands  which  leaves  their  deeper  nature  idle  and 
unoccupied,  longing  for  a  life  more  satisfying  than  is 
offered  by  the  activities  which  consume  its  weary  days, 
finding  something  of  that  true  life  it  may  be  elsewhere, 
in  some  pursuit  which  has  no  relation  to  the  daily  avoca- 
tion. There  is  a  pathos  in  some  men's  "  hobbies  " ;  they 
indicate  that  the  "  soul "  is  not  dead,  but  sleeping,  and 
needs  but  the  touch  of  an  understanding  sympathy  to 
rouse  it  from  its  sleep.  For  the  only  true  "  life  "  is  ivepyeca 
yjrvxrj^,  activity  of  the  Soul  or  Self.  Happiest  is  he  who 
can  put  his  whole  soul,  all  the  energies  of  his  spirit,  into 
each  day's  work.  His  work,  even  as  work,  as  sheer  pro- 
duct, will  have  a  different  value.  It  will  be  honest  work, 
the  best  work.  It  seems  as  if  brute  matter  itself  took 
the  impress  of  the  soul  that  moulds  it ;  we  feel,  for  ex- 
ample, that  Carlyle's  appreciation  of  his  father's  masonry 
is  essentially  a  true  appreciation.^     And  as  the  means  of 

^  "  Nothing  that  he  undertook  but  he  did  it  faithfully,  and  like  a  true 
man.  I  shall  look  on  the  houses  he  built  with  a  certain  proud  interest. 
They  stand  firm  and  sound  to  the  heart  all  over  this  little  district.  Not 
one  that  comes  after  him  will  ever  say,  Here  was  the  finger  of  a  hollow 
eye-servant.  They  are  little  texts  for  me  of  the  gospel  of  man's  free  will." 
— 'Reminiscences,'  5,  6. 


i 


264 


THE   MORAL    LIFE. 


spiritual  expression  and  expansion,  the  difference  between 
nominal  and  real  "work"  is  incalculable.  How  many 
imprisoned,  unexpressed,  unfulfilled  souls  behind  the 
bleared,  indifferent  faces  of  the  world's  workers  !  For  in 
every  man  there  is  a  soul,  a  self,  unique  and  interesting, 
waiting  for  its  development;  and  sometimes,  even  from 
the  deadest  man,  in  the  home  among  his  own  who  under- 
stand him,  or  touched  to  life  by  some  sign  of  brotherly 
interest  in  another,  the  soul  that  had  slept  so  long  will 
suddenly  leap  forth  and  surprise  you. 

The  true  doinf/  is  that  doing  which  is  also  a  'bei7ig,  and 
the  medium  of  better  and  fuller  being,  of  a  higher  self- 
development.  But  such  doing  is  as  unique  as  such  being ; 
the  measure  of  it  is  found  in  the  individuality  of  the 
worker.  Each  man,  like  each  planet,  has  his  "  appointed 
course,"  appointed  him  by  his  nature;  "so  starts  the 
young  life  when  it  has  come  to  self-discovery,  and  found 
out  what  it  is  to  do  by  finding  out  what  it  isJ'  Here 
positively,  for  self-development,  as  already  negatively  for 
self-discipline,  we  see  the  need  for  self-knowledge.  Hav- 
ing found  the  end  or  purpose  of  our  life,  the  course  of  our 
self  -  development,  and  holding  to  this  course  steadily 
through  all  the  storm  and  stress  of  passion  and  of  cir- 
cumstance, through  the  fiery  time  of  youth  and  the 
deadening  effect  of  years,  we  cannot  fail  of  the  complete- 
ness, fulness,  and  symmetry  of  our  appointed  life. 

Such  a  care  for  our  own  true  culture  or  self-develop- 
ment in  all  our  work  is  the  true  "  self-love,"  and  at  the 
opposite  pole  from  selfishness.  AVe  ought  not  to  be  always 
trying  to  "  do  good  " ;  the  first  requisite  for  doing  good  is 
to  be  good.     Philanthropy  or  benevolence  will  grow  out 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


265 


of  this  self -development,  as  its  flower  and  fruit.    But  self- 
culture  is  fundamental,  and  the  unconscious  and  indirect 
philanthropy,  of  faithfulness  to  ourselves  is  often  the  best 
and  farthest-reaching.    Such  self-culture  fits  us  for  service 
to  others ;  when  the  time  comes,  the  man  is  ready.    More- 
over, we  must  first  live  the  true  life  ourselves,  if  we  would 
help  others  to  live  it  too ;  it  is  thus  we  get  the  needed 
understanding.      "We  must  he,  ourselves,  before  we  can 
help  others  to  be.     It  is  because  God  is  all  that  we  would 
be,  that  we  say  and  feel,  "  Thou  wilt  help  us  to  be."    So  it 
is  that,  though  we  are  separate  from  one  another,  separate 
by  the  very  fact  of  Personality,  each  "  rounded  to  a  separ- 
ate whole,"  and  though  each  man's  single  life,  each  man's 
"  own  vineyard,"  needs  constant  and  exclusive  care,  yet  the 
good  man  feels  no  cleft,  as  there  is  none,  between  the  egois- 
tic and  the  altruistic  sides  of  his  life.    Egoism,  in  the  sense 
explained,  is  fundamental,  but  it  is  the  presupposition  of 
an  enlightened  and  genuine  altruism.     No  narrowness  is 
possible  for  him  who  cares  for  and  develops  his  own  true 
life ;  in  himself  he  finds  the  moral  microcosm.     The  best 
ambition  a  man  could  cherish,  both  for  himself  and  for  his 
fellows,  is  that  he  and  they  alike  may,  each  in  himself,  and 
each  in  his  own  way,  so  reflect  the  moral  universe  that 
none  may  have  cause  to  travel  beyond  himself  to  find 
the  fellowship  of  a  common  life  and  a  common  Good. 


9.  Yet  it  is  necessary  to  transcend  our  individuality ;  Necessity 
personality  is  essentially  universal.     "  Whatever  truly  de-  scending 
serves  to  be  held  up  as  a  worthy  object  of  man's  striving  uaiity. 
and  working,  whether  it  be  the  service  of  humanity,  of  J^^  ^^^^^ 
one's  country,  of  science,  of  art,  not  to  speak  of  the  service 


266 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


of  God,  is  far  beyond  the  sphere  of  individual  enjoyment." 
It  is  this  inherent  universality  that  gives  life  its  note  of 
nobility.      The  personal  life  is  never  merely  particular 
and  individual;  its  atmosphere  is  always  the  objective 
and  universal,  whether  it  be  the  intellectual  pursuit  of 
the  true,  the  artistic  pursuit  of  the   beautiful,  or  the 
rehgious  pursuit  of  the  good.    All  these  pursuits  lift  the 
indWidual  out  of  the  sphere  of  the  particular  and  transi- 
tory into  that  of  the  universal  and  the  abiding,  out  of  the 
«  finite  "  into  the  ''  infinite  relations."     This  is  the  touch 
that  transfigures  human  life,  and  lends  to  it  a  divine  and 
absolute  significance.   For  a  full  self-development  it  is  need- 
ful that  we  thus  escape  from  the  "  Cave  "  of  the  particular, 
above  all,  from  the  Cave  of  our  own  individuality,  into 
the  freer  atmosphere  of  the  infinite  and  ideal,  and  let  its 
winds  blow  about  the  soul ;  they  are  the  very  breath  of  its 
higher  life.     This  is  equally  true  of  all  three  sides  of  our 
naUire,— the  intellectual,  the  aesthetic,  and  the  volitional. 

How  the  horizon  of  the  mind  lifts  with  the  apprehen- 
sion of  Truth,  how  the  pursuit  of  it  takes  a  man  out  of 
himself,  how  faithfulness  to  it  delivers  him  from  self- 
seeking   and   narrow   aims,  how  the   scientific   and   the 
philosophic   life   are    essentially   disinterested,  and  how 
educative  of  the  Personality  is  such  a  course  of  pure  in- 
tellectual  activity,  —  on  all  this  there  is  little  need  to 
insist  in  a  scientific  age  like  the  present,  which  has  been 
accused  of  the  "  deification  of  Truth."     It  was  with  no 
little  moral  insight,  as  well  as  with  Greek  partiality  for 
the  things   of   the  mind,  that  Plato   and  Aristotle   de- 
scribed the  highest  life  of  man  as  a  purely  intellectual 
activity,  as  the  speculative  life.    That  the  contemplation  of 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


267 


the  Beautiful  in  nature  and  in  human  life,  the  apprehen- 
sion of  "  the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land,"  is  also 
uplifting  and  enlarging  to  the  soul ;  that  the  companion- 
ship of  the  graceful  and  harmonious  makes  the  soul  itself 
harmonious  and  graceful,  the  Greeks  at  least  knew  well. 
To  them  the  true  education  was  "  musical."  The  man  who 
has  seen  the  beautiful  is  easily  recognised,  his  face  shines 
with  the  light  of  that  divine  vision,  his  footsteps  move  to 
noble  numbers,  he  is  delicate  and  tender,  and  about  him 
there  is  a  gentleness  and  grace  which  you  miss  in  the 
hard  practical  man,  and  even  in  the  mere  intellectualist. 
The  beauty  of  the  world  has  "passed  into  his  face." 
Least  of  all  can  we  be  ignorant  of  the  influence  of  the 
contemplation  of  the  ideal  Good.  The  soul  that  believes 
in,  and  lives  in  communion  with.  Goodness  absolute,  is 
touched  to  goodness  as  a  soul  that  sees  only  the  poverty 
of  the  actual  cannot  be.  The  moral  value  of  an  ethical 
Eeligion  is  an  undoubted  fact,  acknowledged  by  every 
one.  Nor  is  the  essence  of  Eeligion  mere  constraint,  its 
sanction  of  goodness  mere  fear  of  punishment  or  hope  of 
rew^ard.  Far  more  powerful,  though  more  subtly  exer- 
cised, is  the  purifying  influence  of  the  divine  Vision  itself. 
The  Hebrews  felt  this  so  deeply  that  they  were  afraid 
of  that  vision  which  we  have  learned  to  call  "beatific." 
"  No  man  can  see  God's  face  and  live."  Evil  cannot  live 
in  the  presence  of  utter  Holiness.  Even  among  men,  we 
know  how  stern  to  the  impure  is  the  silent  rebuke  of 
purity,  how  humiliating  to  the  worldly  and  selfish  soul 
the  contact  with  unselfishness  and  generosity;  and  we 
can  understand  something  of  the  meaning  of  the  words. 


(( 


Our  God  is  a  consuming  fire." 


268 


THE   MORAL    LIFE. 


Dangers  of 

moral 

Idealism. 


Therefore  it  is  well  and  healthful  for  the  soul  that  each 
should  breathe  at  times  the  pure  atmosphere  of  the  in- 
finite and  ideal,  should  lift  up  his  eyes  unto  the  hills  from 
whence  cometh  his  aid,  should  retire  into  Plato's  "  ideal 
world,"  and  gaze  upon  the  archetypal  Truth  and  Beauty 
and  Goodness  of  which  the  actual  shows  us  but  the  faint 
reflection.     Some  must,  and  by  natural  vocation  will,  con- 
secrate  themselves   to   the  more   direct   and  immediate 
service  of  these  ideals.     The  man  of  science  and  the  phil- 
osopher, the  artist— poet,  painter,  sculptor,  musician— the 
priest  or  minister  of  religion,— these  are,  in  a  peculiar 
sense,  the  servants  of  the  ideal.     But  they  are  only  the 
representatives  of  our  common  humanity  in  that  supreme 
service  and  consecration.     And  if  these  live  habitually 
"  within  the  veil,"  in  the  inner  sanctuary  of  the  Infinite, 
it  is  needful  that   they   whose  preoccupation  with  the 
world's  business  detains  them  in  the  outer  courts  of  the 
finite  world,  if  they  would  preserve  their  manhood  and 
draw  strength  for  life's  casual  duties,  should  sometimes 
enter  too. 

10.  Yet  we  must  never,  in  our  devotion  to  the  ideal  and 
infinite,  neglect  the  paramount  claims  of  the  actual  finite 
world.  We  must  always  return— even  the  ministers  of 
the  ideal  in  art,  in  science,  and  in  religion,  must  return— to 
the  secular  life,  to  the  finite  world  and  its  relations.  Nor 
must  the  \dsion  of  the  infinite  and  ideal  ever  be  allowed 
to  distort  our  vision  of  the  finite  and  actual.  Emancipa- 
tion from  the  "  Cave  "  of  the  finite  brings  with  it  its  own 
new  danger,  it  tends  to  unfit  man  for  the  life  of  the  Cave. 
Those  who  have  lived  in  the  upper  air,  and  have  seen  the 


THE    INDIVIDUAL   LIFE. 


269 


absolute  Eeality,  are  apt  to  be  blinded  by  the  darkness  of 
the  Cave  in  which  their  fellows  spend  their  lives,  and, 
knowing  how.  shadowy  and  illusory  are  all  its  concerns,  to 
lose  their  interest  in  them.  They  are  apt,  as  Plato  said,  to 
be  awkward  and  easily  outwitted,  for  their  souls  sit  loose 
to  this  world  and  dwell  apart.  The  peculiar  temptation  of 
genius,  moral,  aesthetic,  or  intellectual,  the  peculiar  tempta- 
tion of  those  whose  lives  are  spent  habitually  in  the  in- 
finite relations,  is  to  minimise  the  finite,  and  fail  to  see  the 
Infinite  shining  through  it.  Gazing  at  the  stars,  they  are 
in  danger  of  falling  into  the  well.  So  it  is  that  "  respect- 
ability "  is  often  on  a  higher  ethical  plane  than  "  genius  " 
and  "saintship."  Even  Plato  said  that  we  must  bring 
the  travellers  back  to  the  Cave,  and  force  them  to  take 
their  part  in  its  life.  Idealist  and  transcendentalist  though 
he  was,  he  saw  that  most  men  must  live  in  the  Cave.  For, 
as  a  contemporary  wTiter  has  well  said,  "  to  finite  beings 
recognition  of  the  finite — occupation  with,  or  even  absorp- 
tion in  it — is  quite  as  necessary  as  is  the  recognition  of 
what  transcends  it."^  No  service  of  the  ideal  will  atone 
for  unfaithfulness  in  the  actual.  "He  that  is  unfaith- 
ful in  that  which  is  least  is  unfaithful  also  in  much." 
The  individual's  duty  is  determined  and  defined  by  his 
"station,"  or  his  place  in  the  actual  finite  relations,  and 
even  his  cultivation  of  the  ideal  must  be  regulated  by  the 
imperious  claims  of  this  moral  "  station."  We  know  how 
inexorably  severe  were  Carlyle's  judgments  of  self-con- 
demnation for  his  failure  in  the  little  services  of  domestic 
piety,  how,  if  these  judgments  were  even  in  a  measure 
true,  his  "  spectral "  view  of  life,  his  preoccupation  with 

^  Professor  Knight,  '  Aspects  of  Theism,'  205. 


270 


THE   MORAL   LIFE. 


"  immensities  and  eternities,"  shut  out  from  his  field  of 
vision  the  duty  that  lay  next  him.  Carlyle's  uncorrupted 
moral  insight  finds  in  his  "  genius  "  (which  was  perhaps 
as  much  moral  as  intellectual  in  its  quality)  no  excuse  for 
shortcoming  in  the  "  minor  moralities"  of  life.  Nor  does 
the  "  world's "  keen  moral  judgment  find  in  the  peculiar 
religious  attainments  of  "  professing  Christians "  any  ex- 
cuse for  such  obvious  moral  defects  as  malice  and  ill- 
temper.  In  such  cases  the  severity  of  our  judgment  is 
apt  to  be  intensified  by  the  very  height  of  the  ideal  to 
which  the  life  professes  its  devotion.  The  highest  and 
completest  —  the  sanest  —  natures  recognise  most  fully 
this  claim  of  the  actual,  and  most  willingly  surrender 
themselves  to  the  burden  of  its  fulfilment.  In  this 
meekness  and  lowliness  of  spirit  Wordsworth  sees  the 
crown  of  Milton's  virtue: — 

"  Thy  soul  was  like  a  star  and  dwelt  apart ;  .  .  . 
Pure  as  the  heavens,  majestic,  free. 
So  didst  tliou  travel  on  life's  common  way, 
In  cheerful  godliness  ;  and  yet  thy  heart 
The  lowliest  duties  on  herself  did  lay." 

And  Tennyson,  in  the  "  Idylls  of  the  King,"  sings  in  a  like 
strain  of  the  ideal  life : — 

"  And  some  among  you  held  that  if  the  King 
Had  seen  the  sight,  he  would  have  sworn  the  vow ; 
Not  easily,  seeing  that  the  King  must  guard 
That  which  he  rules,  and  is  but  as  the  hind 
To  whom  a  space  of  land  is  given  to  plough, 
Who  may  not  wander  from  the  allotted  field 
Before  his  work  be  done." 

So  must  each  man  be  content,  king  or  subject,  genius  or 
day-labourer,  to  go  forth  unto  his  labour  until  the  evening; 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


271 


for  in  this  world  each  has  his  appointed  task,  and  if  he  do 
it  not,  it  will  be  left  undone.  Even  if  our  duty  be  to 
consecrate  ourselves  in  Science,  in  Art,  or  in  Keligion,  to 
the  peculiar  service  of  the  ideal — the  noblest  service  that 
life  offers,  and  that  which  calls  for  the  highest  aptitudes — 
we  still  must  not  forget  that,  in  respect  of  our  duties  in 
the  actual,  we  stand  on  the  common  level.  The  priest, 
the  artist,  and  the  philosopher  are  also  "  ordinary  men," 
and  have  no  exemption  from  the  common  domestic,  social, 
and  civil  duties.  Such  exemption  would  unfit  them  for 
their  own  great  task — the  discovery  of  life's  ideal  mean- 
ing and  its  interpretation  to  their  fellows.  Nor  must 
any  man  allow  his  excursions  into  the  ideal  world  to  dull 
the  edge  of  his  interest  in  the  ordinary  business  of  life. 
It  is  true  that  we  all  have  need  of  leisure  from  the  very 
finite  occupations  of  life,  for  such  communion  with  the 
Infinite ;  for  in  that  communion  the  soul's  best  life  is 
rooted,  and  it  will  wither  if  not  well  tended.  The  world 
of  Knowledge,  of  Art,  of  Eeligion,  does  claim  us  for  itself, 
and  our  visits  to  it  ought  to  be  all  the  more  frequent  be- 
cause our  actual  world  is  apt  to  be  so  meagre  and  con- 
fined. But  our  acquaintance  with  the  splendours  of  its 
"  many  mansions  "  must  never  breed  in  our  souls  contempt 
for  the  narrowness  and  the  mean  appointments  of  the 
house  of  our  earthly  pilgrimage.  It  is  a  danger  and 
temptation  neither  unreal  nor  unfamiliar.  Let  us  take 
two  illustrations  of  it. 

The  artistic  temper  is  apt  to  be  impatient  of  the 
commonplaceness  of  its  daily  life ;  we  are  wont,  indeed, 
to  attribute  to  it  a  kind  of  practical  irresponsibility.  Led 
by  visions  of  the  beautiful  into  the  romantic  country  of 


272 


THE   MORAL   LIFE. 


the   imagination,   the   spirit  is  loath  to   return^  to   the 
prosaic  fields  of  ordinary  daily  duty.    Its  emotions  are 
ideal    and  find  no  issue  in  action  on  the  earthly  plane ; 
and  more  and  more  it  is  felt  that  there  is  no  scope  for 
such  emotions  in  the  actual  world.     That  other  xvorld- 
the  world  of  the  imagination-is  so  much  more  interest- 
in-  and  exciting,  that,  by  comparison  with  it,  the  actual 
world  of  daily  life,  where  duties  lie,  seems  "  stale,  flat 
and  unprofitable."     It  is  the  Quixotic  temper  that  we  all 
know  in  childhood.     Nothing  will  satisfy  us  but  knight- 
errantry,  slaying  giants,  and  rescuing  fair  ladies.     The  life 
of  tiie  Middle  Ages  would  have  suited  us  much  better 
than  that  of  the  Nineteenth  Century.     It  was  so  much 
more  picturesque,  there  was  so  much  more  colour,  the 
lic^hts  were  brighter  and  the  shadows  deeper;  life  was 
"romantic"   then.     But,  in  reality,  life  is   always   the 
same-  it  presents  always  the  same  moral  opportunities. 
The  elementary  realities   do   not   change,  tlie  Alphabet 
of  human  life  is  the  same  from  age  to  age.     The  imag- 
ination  is  always  apt  to  picture  the  Golden  Age  of  hfe's 
oreat  opportunities  of  action  either  in  the  Past  or  m  the 
Future,  while  really,  if  we  had  eyes  to  see  them,  they 
are  always  in  the  Present.     The  pattern  of  man's  life 
may  be  very  different  in  different  ages,  its  colours  may 
be  brighter  or  more  sombre;    but   its   warp   and  woof, 
its  inner  texture,  is   always  the  same,  and  is  wrought 
of  the  threads  of  good  and  evil,  virtue  and  vice,  faith- 
fulness and  unfaithfulness  to  present  duty. 

Or  take  the  "Saint"  who,  with  his  eye  fixed  on  the 
Beyond,  abstracts  himself  from  this  earthly  life,  either 
physically  as  in  medii^val  Monasticism,  or  actually  and 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


273 


in  the  inner  temple  of  the  heart,  like  many  a  modern 
Protestant,  mingling  with  his  fellows  as  if  he  were  not  of 
them,  not  in  hypocrisy  or  pride,  but  in  real  rapt  abstrac- 
tion of  spirit,  afraid  lest  he  soil  his  hands  with  the  world's 
business  and  render  them  unfit  for  the  uses  of  the  heavenly 
commerce.  Such  a  life  not  only  misses  the  influence  it 
might  have  exerted  on  the  world,  but  proves  itself  un- 
worthy of,  and  unfit  for,  the  higher  just  in  the  measure 
that  it  fails  in  the  lower  duties.  The  peculiar  human 
way  to  the  ideal  is  through  utter  faithfulness  to  the 
actual ;  and  the  reason  why  we  need  to  leave  the  actual 
at  all  is  just  that  we  may  get  the  inspiration  which  will 
enable  us  to  see  the  ideal  in  it.  It  requires  an  eye  that 
has  seen  the  ideal  shining  in  its  own  proper  strength,  to 
detect  it  in  the  disappointing  surroundings  of  the  actual. 
In  activity,  not  in  passive  contemplation,  lies  man's 
salvation.  "  This  is  Christianity,  as  distinguished  from 
Buddhism;"  it  is  also  modern,  as  distinguished  from 
mediaeval,  Christianity.  The  ideal  must  be  found,  after  all, 
in  the  actual,  the  things  unseen  and  eternal  in  the  things 
which  are  seen  and  temporal ;  the  infinitely  true  and 
beautiful  and  good  in  the  finite  relations  of  daily  life. 
It  is  the  function  of  the  chosen  servants  of  the  ideal  to 
open  the  eyes  of  their  fellows  that  they  may  see  life  even 
on  "this  bank  and  shoal  of  time,"  suh  specie  ceternitatis ; 
and  thus  to  make  the  secular  for  them  henceforth  sacred, 
the  commonplace  infinitely  interesting  and  significant. 

11.  But  the  supreme  category  of  the  moral  life  is  the  Ethical 

r^i  J.  IT  ••  '       •       M>      ^       supremacy 

(jrood,  not  as  excluding,  but  as  containing  m  itself,  the  of  the 
Beautiful  and  the  True.     To  make  either  the  True  or  the  Heal. 

S 


r>Y4  THE   MORAL   LIFE. 

T    of    ie  ordn  ry  sensibilities.     For  Plato's  art.st.c 
play  of  the  ordmarj  ^^^^  ^^^^^^^^^^ 

nature,  aga-.  -   -  *    ^^^  ^^f,  ^.^er  the  form  of  the 
always  .-as  to      n.en^  ^^^^^^^^_  ^^^  ^^^^^  .^^^^ 

Beautiful,  and,  as  Mr  raie  concentric 

sciousness.    But  Plato,  poet  individual 

a  nervous  apprehension  of  the  dangers 

1  ^1.    Q^^^if^  that  lie  in  ^stheticism.     He  nas  no  pi^i. 
and  the  State  that  lie  m  ^^.^^  ^^^^^ 

for  the  poets  in  his  ideal  State.     ±iis  qud 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


275 


it  is  to  be  noted,  is  a  characteristic  Greek  one ;  the  poets 
are  condemned  in  the  interests  of  Truth,  rather  than  of 
Goodness.    Where  truth  and  beauty  do  not  coincide,  Plato 
would  seem  to  say,  truth  must  be  preferred  to  beauty. 
Art — the  poetic  art  at  least — being  in  its  essence  imitative, 
substitutes  fiction  for  reality,  and  its  fiction  is  apt  to  be 
a  misrepresentation  of  the  real.     Therefore,  though  none 
has   a   higher   appreciation   of  literary   art  than   Plato, 
though  none  finds  a  more  honourable  place  for  "  music  " 
in  the  education  of  the  ideal  man  and  citizen,  he  finds 
himself  compelled,  in  loyalty  to  the  higher  interests  of 
Truth,  to  banish  the  poets  lest  they  corrupt  the  State  by 
making  its  citizens  believe   a  lie.     It  is  an  impressive 
instance  of  the  war  of  ideals,  and  of  faithfulness  to  the 
highest  knowledge.      And  if  for  us  the  war  has  ceased 
to  exist,  and  the  circles  of  our  life's  interests  have  become 
concentric,  it  is  not  so  much  perhaps  because  we  have 
reached  a  truer  appreciation  of  the  function  of  Art  than 
Plato  knew,  as  because  we  have  learned  to  include  both 
the  aesthetic  and  the  intellectual  life  as  elements  in  the 
undivided  life  of  Goodness.     Let  us  separate  any  one  of 
these  three  ideals  from  the  others,  and  all  alike  are  in 
that  measure  impaired  and  misunderstood.     We  can  see 
that  even  the  Greek  devotion   to  the  True  is  not  the 
highest  or  completest  devotion  of  human  life ;  our  devo- 
tion to  the  True,  as  well  as  to  the  Beautiful,  must,  if  we 
are  to  be  "  perfect,"  be  part  of  our  supreme  devotion  to  the 
Good.     Hence  the  supreme  value  of  the  religious  life,  as 
compared  with  the  other  avenues  to  the  universal   and 
the  Infinite.    Our  deepest  thought  of  God  is  Eighteousness, 


Culture 
and  Phil- 
anthropy 


276 


THE    MOKAL    LIFE. 


and  by  reason  of  this,  its  ethical  basis,  the  religious  ideal 
not  only  includes  the  others,  but  also  comes  nearest  to 
actual  life,  touching  the  otherwise  commonplace  and 
trivial  duties  of  the  finite  relations  and  transfiguring 
them,  shedding  over  the  actual  the  light  of  the  ideal  life. 

12.  Hence  also  it  is  in  the  service  of  our  fellows  that 
we  find  the  continual  emancipation  from  the  prison-house 
of  our  individual  self-hood,  in  philanthropy  that  we  find 
the  surest  and  most  effective  method  of  our  self -develop- 
ment. The  lower  and  selfish  self,  because  it  is  selfish, 
cannot  serve ;  the  very  life  of  the  true  and  higher  Self 
consists  in  ministry.  Xor  is  there  danger,  in  such  a  life, 
of  Quixotic  knight-errantry  or  abstract  moral  Idealism,  of 
our  failing,  through  our  devotion  to  the  ideal,  in  our  duty 
to  the  actual.  The  most  commonplace  service,  '*  the  cup 
of  cold  water,"  any  deed  done  for  another,  takes  us  quite 
out  of  ourselves,  idealises  our  life,  breaks  down  its  limita- 
tions. For  a  true  ministry  to  any  human  need  implies  a 
perfect  sympathy  and  identification  of  ourselves  with  the 
needy  one,  and  we  know  the  enlargement  of  the  spirit's 
life  that  comes  from  such  a  sympathy.  It  opens  up  other 
worlds  of  experience  —  the  world  of  poverty,  of  sickness, 
of  sorrow,  of  doubt,  of  temptation,  of  sin ;  it  unlocks  the 
secret  chambers  of  the  human  heart. 

How  much  the  man  misses  who,  with  miserly  greed, 
hoards  up  his  little  selfish  life  and  will  not  share  it  with 
his  fellows,  how  miserably  poor  and  valueless  even  to 
himself  his  life  becomes,  Butler  has  described  in  his 
stronc^  clear  didactic  manner  in  his  '  Sermons,'  and  George 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


277 


Meredith  has  pictured  in  his  powerful  story  '  The  Egoist.' 
Such  a  picture  George  Eliot  has  given  us  in  '  Silas 
Marner,'  adding,  with  consummate  skill,  the  companion- 
picture  of  the  deliverance  that  came  with  the  first  out- 
goings of  the  poor  shrunken  heart  towards  its  fellows, 
and  how  there  was  born  in  the  spirit  of  Silas  Marner, 
through  the  love  of  a  little  child,  a  new  and  larger  life. 
The  specialist  in  science,  the  business  man,  the  profes- 
sional man,  all  alike  need  the  expansion  that  comes  from 
such  a  contact  with  the  universal  human  heart  and  its 
universal  needs.  The  least  apparently  significant  duty 
to  our  fellows,  to  be  adequately  done,  calls  forth  the 
whole  man,  intellectual,  emotional,  active ;  and  it  is  most 
wholesome  for  the  "  specialist " — and  more  and  more  we 
all,  in  some  sense,  are  specialists — to  be  distracted  from 
a  too  entire  preoccupation  with  his  peculiar  calling  by  the 
common  everyday  duties  of  our  human  life.  Many  illus- 
trations might  be  offered  of  how  truly  the  service  of 
others  is  a  service  of  our  own  best  selves.  What  a 
force,  for  example,  in  self-development  is  the  faithful 
and  adequate  discharge  of  any  office  or  responsibility; 
men  grow  to  the  dignity  of  their  calling,  and  duties  which 
at  first  almost  overpowered  them  become  in  the  end  no 
burden  at  all.  The  expectation  of  others,  silent  it  may 
be  and  undefined,  is  an  incalculable  force  in  steadying 
and  ele  /ating  a  nature  which  might  otherwise  have  been 
unstable  and  even  have  become  ignoble.  To  feel  that  we 
stand  to  another  in  any  measure  for  the  ideal,  as  the  parent 
stands  to  the  child,  the  teacher  to  the  pupil,  the  preacher 
to  his  people,  and  friend  to  friend,  is  a  tremendous  spur  to 


278 


THE    MORAL   LIFE. 


US  to  live  up  to  and  justify,  not  disappoint,  these  expecta- 
tions.    Is  not  this  one  of  the  secrets  of  greatness?     To 
stand,  like  the  prophet  and  reformer,  to  a  whole  people 
in  this  relation,  must  be  an  immeasurable  stimulus  to 
faithfulness  to  the  responsibility  thus   created.      Chris- 
tianity has  done  much  to  bring  home  to  the  human  mind 
the  essential  dignity  and  the  high  privilege  of  service,  and 
to  teach  us  how,  in  serving  our  fellows  and  in  bearing 
one  another's  burdens,  we  may  find  the  path  of  a  perfect 
self-realisation.     Here  we  find  the  bridge  from  the  indi- 
vidual to  the   social   virtues,   the    essential   identity   of 
altruism  with  the  higher  egoism.     In  this  also  lies  the 
Christian  idea  of  moral  greatness,  the  greatness  of  humil- 
ity and  self-sacrifice,  as  opposed  to  the  greatness  of  pride 
and  self-assertion,  the  Pagan  vanity  and  pomp  of  indi- 
viduality.    If  we  wish  to  feel  the  contrast  of  the  Pagan 
and  the  Christian  ideals  of  greatness,  we  have  only  to 
compare  the  Aristotelian  picture  of  the  fieyaXo'ylrvxo^,  the 
proud  aristocrat  who  lives  to  prove  his  independence  and 
superiority,  with  that  other  picture  of  a  Life  that  poured 
itself  out  in  the  service  of  others,  that  came  not  to  be 
ministered  unto  but  to  minister,  that  was  willing,  for  the 
sake  of  such  a  ministry,  even  to  be  misunderstood.     This 
picture  has  touched  the  heart  of  the  world  as  the  other 
never  could  have  touched  it.     For  it  is  a  revelation  of  the 
blessedness  that  lies  in  escape  from  the  prison-house  of 
the  "  private  "  and  selfish  life,  and  feels  throbbing  within 
it  the  universal  life  of  humanity  itself. 


13.  Yet  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that  the  moral  life 


THE   INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


279 


remains  always  a  personal,  and  even  an  individual  life ;  Seif-rever- 
it  never  becomes  impersonal  or  "  self-less."     The  unselfish  dignity 
life  is  not  self -less  or  impersonal ;  rather,  as  we  have  just  tude^of  * 
seen,  the  life  of  Self  is  enlarged  and  enriched  in  direct  pro-  fn[y°"' 
portion  to  the  unselfishness  of  that  life.     Even  the  indi- 
viduality is  not,  in  such  self-development  any  more  than 
in  self-discipline,  negated  or  annihilated;  it  is  taken  up 
into,  and  interpreted  by,  this  larger  social  Good. 

Nor  must  we  forget  that  the  fundamental  and  essential 
attitude  of  a  man  towards  himself  is  one  of  self-respect, — 
what  Milton  calls  "  the  inward  reverence  of  a  man  towards 
his  own  person,"  reverence  for  the  humanity  which  he 
represents.     This  is  the  true  "  greatness  of  soul "  which  is 
perfectly  consistent  with  the  utmost  humility  as  to  our 
actual  achievements  and  individual  desert,  with  remorse 
and  shame  and  bitter  self-condemnation.     For  such  self- 
reverence  is  reverence  for  the  ideal  and  potential  manhood 
in  oneself,  and  means  the  chastisement  of  the  actual  by 
comparison.     This  noble  self-consciousness  should  enable 
a  man  to  preserve  his  dignity  in  all  the  affairs  of  life,  and 
make  him,  in  the  true  sense,  sufficient  unto  himself,  his 
own  judge   and   his   own  approver.      We  are  told  that 
Goetlie  had  no  patience  with  "  over-sensitive  people,"  with 
those  "  histrionic  natures,"  who  "  seem  to  imagine  that 
they  are  always  in  an  amphitheatre,  with  the  assembled 
world  as  spectators ;  whereas,  all  the  while,  they  are  play- 
ing to  empty  benches."    Doubtless,  if  we  filled  the  benches 
with  the  great  and  good  of  all  ages,  as  with  a  "  great  cloud 
of  witnesses,"  and  brought  our  actions  to  the  penetrating 
gaze  of  their  clear  judgment,  such  a  consciousness  would 


280 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


be  most  beneficial  and  worthy.     But  we  are  far  too  apt  to 
be  play-acting  instead  of  living,  contented  if  only  we  suc- 
ceed in  playing  a  certain  role,  and  appearing  to  be  what 
we  are  not.     Such  a  "  histrionic  "  life  is  the  very  antithesis 
of  the  good  life ;  and,  when  detected,  it  is  rightly  named 
"  hypocrisy."     But  oftener  it  passes  undetected,  and  gains 
the  applause  for  which  it  has  striven.     And  even  those 
who  are  not  consciously  masquerading,  for  whom  life  is 
real  and  earnest,  are  too  apt  to  be  dependent  upon  the 
judgment  of  others,  and  to  forget  that  a  man  is  called  upon 
to  be  his  own  judge,  and  in  all  things  to  live  worthily  of 
himself.     The  general  level  of  moral  opinion  subtly  insin- 
uates itself  into  our  judgments  of  ourselves,  we  lose  our 
independence,  and  sink  below  our  own  true  level. 

All  strong  natures  are  self-contained;  it  is  the  secret 
of  moral  peace  and  calm,  the  mark  of  the  wise  and  good 
of  every  age.     "  Such  a  man  feels  that  to  fail  in  any  act 
of   kindness    and    helpfulness   would   be   foreign   to   his 
nature.     It  would  be  beneath  him.     His  sense  of  honour 
forbids  him  to  stoop  to  anything  selfish,  petty,  or  mean." 
The  "  opulent  or  royal  soul  that  has  felt  itself  to  be  one 
with  the   great   human   life   about  it,  would   feel  itself 
narrowed,    and    thus    dishonoured,   by    any   act    through 
which  it  should   cut  itself   off  from  these   larger   rela- 
tions." ^     It  would  feel  like  a  prince  deposed.     "  In  this 
sense  it  is  that  we  may  speak  of  stooping  to  a  selfish  act, 
or  may  say  that  such  an  act  is  not  only  foreign  to  the 
nature,  but  is  unworthy  of  it  and  beneath  it."  -     So  sub- 
limely independent,  so  nobly  self-contained,  is  the  life  of 

1  C.  C.  Everett,  '  Poetry,  Comedy,  and  Duty,'  245.  -  Ibid.,  246. 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    LIFE. 


281 


personality.     The  good  man  is  at  home  with  himself,  and 
his  real  life  is  an  inner  rather  than  an  outer  life. 

"  The  world  is  too  mucli  with  us ;  late  and  soon, 
Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers." 

The  moral  weakling  lives  always,  or  for  the  most  part, 
abroad,  and  never  retires  within  himself,  to  find  behind 
the  veil  of  his  own  inner  being  that  vision  of  the  perfect 
life  for  which  the  spirit  yearns.     For  the  lowly  and  con- 
trite heart  is  His  temple  who  dwelleth  not  in  temples 
made  with  hands,  and  the  pure  and  upright  soul  is  his 
continual  abode.     But  this  truly  "  sacred  place  "  must  be 
kept  sacred,  and  it  cannot  be,  if  it  is  opened  to  all  the 
riot  and  confusion  of  the  market-place.     "  Solitude  is  to 
character  what  space  is  to  the  tree."     The  loneliness  of 
personality  is  never  to  be  forgotten ;  "  the  heart  knoweth 
its  own  bitterness,  and  a  stranger  intermeddleth  not  there- 
with."   In  a  deep  sense,  we  are  separate  from  one  another, 
and  each  man  must  bear  his  own  burden.     The  walls  of 
personality  shut  us  in,  each  within  the   chamber  of  his 
own  being  and  his  own  destiny.     It  is  therefore  good  and 
most  necessary  for  a  man  to  be  alone  with  himself.     It 
was  one  of  the  most  genial  and  social-hearted  of  men  who 
said :  "  If  the  question  was  eternal  company,  without  the 
power  of  retiring  within  yourself,  I  should  say,  '  Turnkey, 
lock  the  cell.' "  ^     But,  happily,  that  is  not  the  alternative. 
In  the  solitary  places  of  the  human  heart,  in  the  deep 
quiet  valleys  and  on  the  high  mountain-tops  of  our  moral 
being,  is  to  be  found  the  "  goodly  fellowship  "  of  the  great 

^  Scott,  Journal. 


282 


THE    MORAL   LIFE. 


and  noble  of  all  the  ages  of  man's  long  history — nay,  the 
fellowship  of  the  Universal  Spirit,  the  meeting-place  of 
man  with  God.  We  must  cherish  the  solitude,  even  as 
we  would  cherish  that  fellowship.^ 


^  Archbishop  Trench  has  given  fine  expression  to  this  feeling 
Rowing  sonnet : — 


283 


in  the 


followin 


"A  Avretched  thing  it  were,  to  have  our  heart 
Like  a  thronged  highway  or  a  populous  street ; 
Wliere  every  idle  thought  has  leave  to  meet, 
Pause,  or  pass  on,  as  in  an  open  mart ; 
Or  like  some  roadside  pool,  which  no  nice  art 
Has  guarded  that  the  cattle  may  not  beat 
And  foul  it  with  a  umltitude  of  feet, 
Till  of  the  heavens  it  can  give  back  no  part. 
But  keep  thou  thine  a  holy  solitude, 
For  he  who  would  walk  there,  would  walk  alone  ; 
He  who  would  drink  there,  must  be  tirst  endued 
With  single  right  to  call  that  stream  his  own  ; 
Keep  thou  thine  heart,  close-fastened,  unrevealed, 
A  fenced  garden,  and  a  fountain  sealed." 


CHAPTEE    11. 


THE   SOCIAL  LIFE. 


I,— The  Social  Virtices:  Justice  and  Benevolence. 

1.  Max  has  social  or  other-regarding,  as  well  as  individual  ^hereia^^ 
or  self-ref^arding,  impulses  and  instincts.  By  nature,  and  social  to 
even  in  his  unmoralised  condition,  he  is  a  social  bemg ;  viduai  life, 
but  this  sympathetic  or  altruistic  nature  must,  equally 
with  the  selfish  and  egoistic,  be  formed  and  moulded  into 
the  virtuous  character.  The  primary  feeling  for  others, 
like  the  primary  feeling  for  self,  is  only  the  raw  material 
of  the  moral  life.  And  the  law  of  the  process  of  moralisa- 
tion  is  the  same  in  both  cases ;  the  virtuous  attitude  to- 
wards others  is  essentially  the  same  as  the  virtuous  •  atti- 
tude towards  oneself.  For  in  others,  as  in  ourselves,  we 
are  called  upon  to  recognise  the  attribute  of  Personality. 
They,  too,  are  ends  in  themselves ;  their  life,  like  our  own, 
is  one  of  self-realisation,  of  self-development  through  self- 
discipline.  We  must  treat  them,  therefore,  as  we  treat 
ourselves,  as  Persons.  The  law  of  the  individual  life  is 
also  the  law  of  the  social  life,  though  in  a  different  and  a 
wider  application.  Virtue  is  fundamentally  and  always 
personal;  and  when  we  have  discovered  the  law  of  the 


284 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


individual  life,  we  have  already  discovered  that  of  the 
social  life.  Since  men  are  not  mere  individuals,  but  the 
bearers  of  a  common  personality,  the  development  in  the 
individual  of  his  true  self -hood  means  his  emancipation 
from  the  limitations  of  individuality,  and  the  path  to  self- 
realisation  is  through  the  service  of  others.  Not  that  we 
serve  others,  the  better  to  serve  ourselves :  we  may  not 
regard  another  person  as  the  instrument  even  of  our  own 
best  self-development.  They,  too,  are  ends-in-themselves  : 
to  them  is  set  the  self-same  task  as  to  ourselves,  the  task 
of  self-realisation.  The  Law  of  the  moral  life,  the  Law 
of  Personality,  covers  the  sphere  of  social  as  well  as  of  in- 
dividual duty ;  the  Law  is :  "  So  act  as  to  treat  humanity, 
vslicther  in  thine  own  pci^son  or  in  that  of  another,  always  as 
an  end,  never  as  a  means  to  an  end."  We  may  nse  neither 
ourselves  nor  others.  Truly  to  serve  humanity,  therefore, 
is  to  realise  oneself,  and  at  the  same  time  to  aid  others  in 
the  same  task  of  self-realisation.  In  serving  others,  we 
are  serving  ourselves ;  in  serving  ourselves,  we  are  serving 
others.  For,  in  both  cases,  we  serve  that  Humanity  which 
must  ever  be  served,  and  which  may  never  serve. 

The  life  of  virtue,  even  on  its  social  side,  is  still  a  per- 
sonal, not  an  impersonal  life.  This  is  apt  to  be  over- 
looked, owing  to  the  illusion  of  the  term  "  social "  and  the 
antithesis,  so  commonly  emphasised,  between  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  social  life.  The  individual  and  the  social 
are  in  reality  two  aspects  of  the  one  undivided  life  of 
virtue,  and  their  unity  is  discovered  with  their  reduction 
to  the  common  principle  of  Personality.  The  social  life 
is,  equally  with  the  individual  life,  personal ;  and  the  per- 
sonal life  is  necessarily  at  once  individual  and  social.     We 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


285 


must  not  be  misled  by  the  phrase  "social  life,"  as   if 
society  had  a  life  of  its  own  apart  from  its  individual 
members ;  society  is  the  organisation  of  individuals,  and 
it  is  theij  who  live,  not  it.     Apart  from  its  individual 
members,  society  would  be  a  mere  abstraction;  but  we 
are  too  apt,  here  as  elsewhere,  to  hypostatise  abstractions. 
In  reality,  society  is  not  an  "  organism,"  but  the  ethical 
oro-anisation   of   individuals.       Obviously,   we   must   not 
isolate  the  organisation  or  the  relation  from  the  bemgs 
organised  or  related;   this  would  be  a  new  case  of   the 
old  Scholastic  Eealism,  or  substantiation  of  the  universal. 
Moral  reality,  like  all  finite  reality,  is,  in  the  last  analysis, 
individual.     But  while  the  life  of  virtue  is  always  indi- 
vidual, it  is  not  merely  individual :  to  be  personal,  it  must 
be  social.     If  in  one  sense  each  lives  a  separate  life,  yet 
in  another  sense  "  no  man  liveth  unto  himself."     A  common 
personality  is  to  be  realised  in  each,  and  in  infinite  ways 
the  life  of  each  is  bound  up  with  that  of  all.     Only,  the 
individual  may  never  lose  himself  in  the  life  of  others. 
As  a  person,  he  is  an  end  in  himself,  and  has  an  infinite 
worth.     He  has  a  destiny,  to  be  wrought  out  for  himself ; 
the  destiny  of  society  is  the  destiny  of  its  individual  mem- 
bers.    The  "  progress  of  the  race  "  is,  after  all,  the  progress 
of  the  individual.     The  ethical  End  is  personal,  first  and 
last.     As  the  individual  apart  from  society  is  an  unreal 
abstraction,  so  is  society  apart  from  the  individual.     The 
ethical  unit  is  the  person. 

Thus  we  can  see  that  there  is  no  necessary  antagonism 
between  Individualism,  truly  understood,  and  Socialism, 
truly  understood.  Nay,  the  true  Socialism  is  the  true 
Individualism,  the  discovery  and  the  development  of  the 


286 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


person  in  the  individual.  Society  exists  for  the  indi- 
vidual, it  is  the  mechanism  of  his  personal  life.  All 
social  progress  consists  in  the  perfecting  of  this  mechan- 
ism, to  the  end  that  the  ethical  individual  may  have 
more  justice  and  freer  play  in  the  working  out  of  his 
own  individual  destiny.  The  Individualism  of  the  mere 
individual  means  moral  chaos  and  is  suicidal ;  such  a  life 
is,  as  Hobbes  described  it,  "  poor,  nasty,  dull,  brutish,  and 
short."  But  the  Individualism  of  the  person  is,  in  its 
idea  at  least,  synonymous  with  the  true  Socialism.  For 
social  progress  does  not  mean  so  much  the  massing  of 
individuals  as  the  individualising  of  the  social  "  mass " ; 
the  discovery,  in  the  "  masses,"  of  that  same  humanity,  in- 
dividual and  personal,  which  had  formerly  been  discerned 
only  in  the  "  classes."  The  "  socialistic  "  ideal  is  to  make 
possible  for  the  "  many  " — nay,  for  all,  or  better  for  each — 
that  full  and  total  life  of  personality  which,  to  so  large 
an  extent,  is  even  still  the  exclusive  possession  of  the 
few.  Social  organisation  is  never  an  end  in  itself,  it  is 
always  a  means  to  the  attainment  of  individual  perfection. 

Social  vir-  2.  We  have  seen  that  social  or  altruistic  impulse,  like 
nature  and  individual  or  egoistic,  is  only  the  raw  material  of  virtue. 
Its  limit,      p^^^  ^£  ^-^^^  u  nature "  which  has  to   be  moralised  into 

"  character."  Mere  "  good-will "  or  "  sociality  "  is  not 
the  virtue  of  Benevolence;  the  natural  inclination  to 
help  others  needs  guidance,  and  may  have  to  be  re- 
strained. So  true  is  Kant's  contention  that  mere  un- 
guided  impulse  or  inclination  has,  as  such,  no  ethical 
value.  We  have  also  seen  that  the  law,  in  the  one  case 
as  in  the  other,  is  found  in  personality.     Each  man,  being 


THE    SOCIAL    LIFE. 


287 


an  Ego  or  Person,  has  the  right  to  the  life  of  a  Person. 
The  true  ethical  attitude  of  other  persons  to  him,  there- 
fore, is  the  same  as  his  attitude  towards  himself;  and 
accordingly  social,  like  individual,  virtue  has  two  sides,  a 
negative  and  a  positive.  The  attitude  of  the  virtuous 
man  towards  his  fellows  is  first,  negatively,  the  mak- 
ing room  for  or  not  hindering  their  personal  life,  and 
secondly,  the  positive  helping  of  them  to  such  a  life,  the 
removing  of  obstacles  from  their  way,  and  the  bringing 
about  of  favourable  conditions  for  their  personal  develop- 
ment. Here,  with  the  conditions  of  the  moral  life  in  our 
fellows,  we  must  stop ;  no  man  can  perform  the  moral 
task  for  another,  there  is  no  vicariousness  in  the  moral 
life.  ^N'ot  even  God  can  TiiaJce  a  man  good.  Goodness,  by 
its  very  nature,  must  be  the  achievement  of  the  individual ; 
each  must  work  out  his  own  salvation.  The  individual 
must  fight  his  own  battles,  and  win  his  own  victories, 
and  if  he  is  defeated,  he  must  suffer  and  strive  through 
suffering  to  his  final  perfection.  The  moral  life  is  essen- 
tially a  personal  life;  in  this  sense  all  morality  is  "private." 
Life  lies  for  each  in  "  the  realisation  of  self  by  self " ; 
that  is  our  peculiar  human  dignity  and  privilege  and 
high  responsibility,  and  it  is  not  allowed  that  any  man 
come  between  us  and  our  "  proper  business."  But  every- 
thing short  of  this  moral  interference  and  impertinence, 
we  may  do  for  our  fellows.  "  Environment "  counts  for 
much,  especially  the  social  environment,  and  we  can  im- 
prove the  moral  environment  of  those  whom  we  wish  to 
aid.  The  will  can  be  stimulated  by  suggestions  from 
another,  though  no  amount  of  pressure  can  coerce  it. 
Ideals  are  potent,  and,  once   accepted,  seem   to   realise 


288 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


themselves ;  and  we  can  suggest,  especially  by  our  own 
practice  and  example,  true  moral  ideals  to  others.  In 
such  ways,  society  can  stimulate  in  the  individual,  and  in- 
dividuals can  stimulate  in  their  fellows,  the  life  of  virtue. 
Only,  we  cannot  take  the  moral  task  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  individual,  we  cannot  even  strictly  "  co-operate " 
with  him  in  the  execution  of  that  task.  Such  is  the 
solitariness  of  the  moral  life. 


THE    SOCIAL   LIFE. 


289 


Its  two 
aspects, 
negative 
and  posi- 
tive :  Jus- 
tice and 
Benev- 
olence. 
Their  mu- 
tual rela- 
tions and 
respective 
spheres. 


3. 


Social  virtue,  on  its  negative  side,  we  may  call  Jus- 
tice, with  its  corresponding  duty  of  Freedom  or  Equality ; 
on  its  positive  side,  we  may  call  the  virtue  Benevolence, 
and  the  duty  Fraternity  or  Brotherliness.  I  use  these 
terms,  of  course,  very  generally,  to  cover  much  more  than 
civic  excellence  in  the  one  case,  and  than  what  is  ordin- 
arily called  "  philanthropy  "  in  the  other.  Whenever  I  do 
not  repress  another  personality,  but  allow  it  room  to 
develop,  I  am  Just  to  it;  whenever,  in  any  of  the 
senses  above  suggested,  I  help  another  in  the  fulfilment 
of  his  moral  task,  I  exercise  towards  him  the  virtue  of 
Benevolence. 

There  is  the  same  kind  of  relation  between  Justice 
and  Benevolence  in  the  social  life  as  between  Temper- 
ance and  Culture  in  the  individual.  As  self-discipline 
is  the  presupposition  of  a  true  self-development,  so  is 
Justice  the  presupposition  of  a  true  Benevolence.  This 
logical  priority  is  also  a  practical  priority.  We  must  be 
just  before  we  can  be  generous.  We  earn  the  higher 
power  by  our  faithful  exercise  of  the  lower.  This  is 
obvious  enough  in  the  case  of  political  action ;  the  phil- 
anthropy of  the  State  must  be  founded  in  Justice,  the 


interests  of  Security  form  the  basis  of  the  interests  of 
Well-being.      Indeed,   the  Benevolence   of  the   State   is 
really  a  higher  Justice.     But  the  principle   is  not  less 
true  of  the  relations  of  individuals  to  one  another ;  here, 
too.  Benevolence  is  only  Justice   made   perfect.     When 
the  parent,  out  of  a  full  heart  and  without  a  thought  of 
self-interest,  does  his  best  for  his  child,  when  friend  acts 
thus  by  friend,  or  teacher  by  scholar,  what  is  each  doing 
but  striving  to  mete  out  to  the  other  the  full  measure  of 
a  perfect  Justice  ?     More  or  higher  than  that,  no  man  can 
ask  from  another  and  no  man  can  give  to  his  fellow.     The 
distinction,  though  so  convenient,  is  artificial;  it  is  one 
of  those  division-lines  which,  since  they  do  not  exist  in 
reality,  disappear  with  a  deeper  insight  into  the  nature 
of  things.     Most  pernicious  have  been  the  effects  of  the 
neglect  of  the  true  relation  of  priority  in  which  Justice 
stands  to  Benevolence.    The  Christian  morality,  as  actually 
preached  and  practised,  has  been  largely  chargeable  with 
this  misinterpretation.      "  Charity  "  has  been  magnified  as 
the  grand  social  virtue,  and  has  been  interpreted  as  a 
"  giving  of  alms  "  to  the  poor,  a  doing  for  them  of  that 
which  they  are  unable  to  do  for  themselves,  an  allevia- 
tion, more  or  less  temporary,  of  the  evils  that  result  from 
the   misery   of  their   worldly   circumstances.      But  this 
"charity"   has   coexisted   with   the  utmost  injustice  to 
those  who  have  been  its  objects.     Instead  of  attacking  the 
stronghold  of  the  enemy— the  poverty  itself,  the  shameful 
inequality  of  conditions— the  Church  as  a  social  institution, 
and  individuals  in  their  private  capacity  or  in  other  forms 
of  association,  have  apparently  accepted  the  evil  as  per- 
manent and  inevitable,  or  have  even  welcomed  it  as  the  great 

T 


290 


THE   MORAL    LIFE. 


opportunity  of  the  moral  life.    It  has  been  assumed  that  we 
must  always  have  the  poor  with  us,  and  their  poverty  has 
been  regarded  as  a  splendid  field  for  the  exercise  of  the 
virtue  of  benevolence.     Yet  a   moment's   reflection  will 
convince  us  that  this  virtue  cannot  find  its  exercise  in  the 
field  of  injustice :  the  only  field  for  its  development  is  one 
which  has  been  prepared  for  it  by  the  sharp  ploughshare 
of  a  thoroughgoing  justice.      Injustice  and  Benevolence 
cannot  dwell  together;   and  when  justice  has   done   its 
perfect  work,  there  will  be  little  left  for  the  elder  "  phil- 
anthropy "  to  do,  and  "  charity "  will  be  apt  to  find  its 
occupation  gone.     When  the  causes  of  distress  have  been 
removed,  the  distress  itself  will  not  have  to  be  relieved, 
and  benevolence  will  find  its  hands  free  for  other  and 
better  work.     When  all  have  justice,  those  who  now  need 
help  will  be  independent  of  it,  and  men  will  learn  at  last 
that  the  best  help  one  can  give  to  another  is  "  to  help  him 
to  help  himself."     It  is  because  we  have  really  given  our 
fellows  less  than  justice  that  we  have  seemed  to  give  them 

more. 

For  what  is  Justice  ?  Is  it  not  to  recognise  in  one's 
fellow-man  an  Alter  Ego,  and  to  love  one's  neighbour  as 
oneself  ?  Is  it  not  the  principle  of  moral  equality— that 
each  shall "  count  for  one,  and  no  one  for  more  than  one"  ? 
And  when  we  remember  that  the  reckoning  is  to  be  made 
not  merely  in  terms  of  physical  life  or  of  material  well- 
being,  but  in  terms  of  personality;  that  we  are  called 
upon  to  treat  our  fellow-man  as  literally  another  "  self," 
and  to  take  towards  him,  as  far  as  may  be,  his  own  atti- 
tude towards  himself,— do  we  not  find  that  such  Equality 
is  synonymous  with  Fraternity,  that  others  are  in  very 


THE    SOCIAL    LIFE. 


291 


truth  our  ''  fellows "  and  our  "  brothers "  in  the  moral 
life  ?  Might  it  not  be  less  misleading  to  speak  only  of 
Justice  in  -the  social  relations — of  negative  and  positive 
Justice — than  of  Justice  and  Benevolence  ? 

The  fact  of  the  essential  identity  of  Justice  and  Benev- 
olence suggests  that  they  have  a  common  sphere.  That 
sphere  is  the  social,  and  more  particularly  the  political 
life.  Yet  here  also  there  is  a  distinction  within  the 
identity.  While  both  virtues  may  be  exercised  in  the 
political  sphere,  it  is  of  the  genius  of  Justice  to  spend 
itself  upon  the  community,  of  Benevolence  to  single  out 
the  individual.  The  peculiar  sphere  of  Benevolence  or 
the  highest  justice  is  that  of  private  and  domestic  life, 
and  of  the  non-political  association  of  individuals.  The 
characteristically  individual  nature  of  this  aspect  of 
virtue  was  recognised  by  the  Greeks,  whose  name  for  it 
was  "  Friendship."  So  far  is  the  conception  carried  that 
Aristotle  is  led  to  question  whether  one  can  have  more 
than  one  true  "  friend,"  whether  it  is  possible  to  stand 
in  this  relation  of  perfect  fellowship  to  more  than  one 
individual ;  for  hardly  shall  we  find  more  than  one  alter 
ego,  happy  indeed  are  we  if  we  find  even  one.  The 
modern  conception  is  that  of  universal  Love  or  "  Human- 
ity." But  the  essence  of  the  virtue  is  the  same  in  both 
cases, — "  brotherliness  "  or  "  fellowship."  This  conception 
signalises  that  intimateness  of  the  relation  which  converts 
Justice  into  Benevolence  or  imperfect  into  perfect  Justice. 
Where  Justice  insists  upon  the  "equality"  of  men  in 
virtue  of  their  common  personality,  Benevolence  seizes 
the  individuality  in  each.  Benevolence  is  more  just  than 
Justice,  because  it  is  enlightened  by  the  insight  into  that 


292 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


Benev- 
olence. 


"  inequality  "  and  uniqueness  of  individuals,  which  is  no 
less  real  than  the  "equality"  of  persons. 

4.  It  is  in  the  case  of  Benevolence  especially  that  we 
realise  the  necessity  of  the  regulation  or  moralisation  of 
the  original  natural  impulse  or  affection.     Whether  we 
take  the  promptings  of  the  parent,  of  the  friend,  of  the 
patriot,  or  of  the  philanthropist,  we  see  that  altruistic 
impulse  is  originally  as  blind  as  egoistic,  and  needs,  no 
less  than  the  latter,  the  illumination  of  reason.     We  need 
the  wisdom  of  rational  insight  into  the  Good  of  another, 
if  we  are  to  aid  him  in  any  measure  in  the  attainment  of 
it,  and  all  our  benevolent  activity  must  be  informed  and 
directed  by  this  insight.     Without  such  guidance,  we  can- 
not be  really  "  kind  "  to  another.     Unwise  kindness  is  oiot 
kindness,— that,  for  example,  of  the  "  indulgent "  parent, 
teacher  or  friend,  of  blind  philanthropy,  of  indiscriminate 
charity.     The  vice  of  such  conduct   is  that  it   destroys 
the   self-reliance   and   self-dependence  of  the  individual 
so  blindly  "loved."     The  only  true  benevolence  is    that 
which  helps  another  to  help  himself,— which,  by  the  very 
aid  it  gives,  inspires  in  the  recipient  a  new  sense  of  his 
own  responsibility,  and  stirs  him  to  a  better  life. 

It  is  amazing  how  potent  for  good  is  such  a  true  benevo- 
lence. It  seems  to  touch  the  very  springs  of  the  moral 
life.  By  this  intimate  apprehension  of  a  brother's  nature 
and  a  brother's  task,  it  may  be  given  to  us  to  stir  within 
him  the  dying  embers  of  a  faith  and  hope  blighted  by 
failure  after  failure,  and  to  reawaken  in  him  the  old  high 
purpose  and  ideal  of  his  life.  The  fact  that  some  one 
else  has  a  real  and  unwavering  confidence  in  him,  sees  still 


THE    SOCIAL   LIFE. 


293 


in  him  the  lineaments  of  a  complete  and  noble  manhood, 
will  inspire  such  a  man  with  new  strength,  born  of  a  new 
hope.  There  was  once  a  Purpose  in  his  life,  but  it  has 
long  ago  escaped  his  grasp,  and  seems  for  ever  frustrated ; 
what  once  was  possible  seems  possible  no  longer,  his  life 
is  broken  and  can  never  again  be  whole.  But  one  comes 
who  reminds  him  of  that  former  and  truer  Self,  and 
reawakens  in  him  the  old  ideal.  The  way  back  may  be 
long  and  difficult,  but  the  sight  of  the  goal,  even  at  such 
a  distance  and  up  such  steeps,  will  give  the  traveller 
strength  for  the  journey.  What  does  he  not  owe  to  him 
who  shows  him  the  open  path  ?  Zaccheus,  the  "  publican 
and  sinner,"  owed  his  "  salvation  " — so  far  as  this  caii  be 
a  debt — to  him  who  reminded  him  that,  in  his  deepest 
nature  and  best  possibility,  he  was  still  a  "  son  of  Abra- 
ham "  ;  and  others  who  had  fallen  lowest,  when  they  heard 
from  the  same  wise  and  tender  lips,  instead  of  the  scath- 
ing condemnation  they  had  feared,  the  words  of  a  deeper 
insight  and  a  larger  hope, — "  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee," 
— were  filled  with  a  new  strength  to  obey  the  authoritative 
command:  "Go,  and  sin  no  more."  It  must  have  been 
this  grand  insight,  this  hand  of  brotherly  sympathy  and 
sublime  human  hope,  stretched  out  to  raise  a  fallen 
humanity  to  his  own  ideal  of  it,  that  made  tolerable  that 
Teacher's  scathing  exposure  of  every  hidden  evil. 

And  even  in  the  ordinary  course  and  less  grave  occa- 
sions of  human  life,  we  must  acknowledge  the  power  for 
good  that  lies  in  a  sympathetic  appreciation  of  another's 
task,  and  of  his  capabilities  for  its  discharge.  The  parent 
may  thus  discover  in  the  child  possibilities  which  had  else 
remained  undiscovered  and  unrealised.     The  teacher  may 


294 


THE    MORAL   LIFE. 


thus  discover  in  the  pupil  the  potential  thinker,  scholar, 
artist,  and  awaken  in  him  the  hope  and  ambition  which 
shall  be  a  lifelong  inspiration.     Here  is  the  moral  value 
of  optimism  and  enthusiasm  as  contrasted  with  pessimism 
and  cynicism.     If  we  would  help  another,  in  this  high 
sense  of  helpfulness,  we  must  believe  deeply,  and  hope 
strenuously,  and   bear  courageously  the  disappointment 
of  our  expectations  and  desires.     The  gloomy  severity  of 
condemnation,  unlit  by  any  ray  of  hope  of  better  things, 
which  marks  the  Puritanical  temper,  will  crush  a  life  which 
might  otherwise  have  been  lifted  up  to  a  higher  plane. 
AYhat  many  a  struggling  soul  needs  most  of  all  is  a  little 
more  self-reliance  and  buoyancy  of  hope,  and  the  know- 
ledge that  another  had  confidence  in  him  would  breed 
a  new  confidence  in  himself.     Why  leave  unspoken  the 
word  of  encouragement  or  praise  which  might  mean  so 
much  of  good  to  him,  out  of  the  fooHsh  fear  of  nourishing 
in  him  that  quality  of  self-conceit  which  may  be  entirely  ab- 
sent from  his  character  ?     Aristotle's  observation  was  that 
most  men  suffered  from  the  opposite  fault  of  "  mean-spirit- 
edness,"  and  a  deficient  appreciation  of  their  own  powers. 
This  true  benevolence  means  getting  very  near  to  our 
fellow-man,  becoming  indeed  his  fellow,  identifying  our- 
selves with  him.     It  means  the  power  of  sympathy.     We 
are  apt  to  be  so  external  to  one  another,  and  "  charity  "  is 
so  easily  given:  we  must  give  ourselves.    We  must  put 
ourselves  alongside  our  fellow,  enter  into   his  life  and 
make  it  our  own,  if  we  would  understand  it.     For  such 
understanding  of  another's  life,  such  a  right  appreciation 
of  another's  task,  is  not  easy.     It  is  apt  to  seem  a  gift  of 
moral  genius  rather  than  a  thing  which  may  be  learned. 


THE    SOCIAL    LIFE. 


295 


The  perfection  of  it  is  found  in  love  and  in  true  friend- 
ship, where  a  man  finds  an  alter  ego  in  another,  and 
perhaps,  as  Aristotle  says,  it  is  only  possible  to  have  one 
such  friend.  But  there  is  a  great  call  for  the  quality,  in 
some  measure  of  it,  in  all  the  relations  of  life  ;  without  it 
no  true  benevolence  is  possible. 

5.  Such  benevolence  implies  self-sacrifice ;  we  cannot  Benevo- 
thus  serve  others,  and  at  the  same  time  always  serve  our-  Culture, 
selves.  The  altruistic  principle  of  life  does  sometimes  con- 
flict with  the  egoistic,  even  in  its  highest  form.  The  ques- 
tion, therefore,  inevitably  arises.  How  far  ought  self-sacrifice 
to  go  ?  How  far  ought  devotion  to  the  interests  of  others 
to  supersede  the  individual's  devotion  to  his  own  highest 
interest  ?  This  is  a  peculiarly  modern  difficulty,  and  arises 
from  the  new  spirit  of  altruism  which  Christianity  has 
brought  into  our  ethical  life  and  thought.  To  the  Greeks 
the  question  did  not  arise  at  all.  They  did  not  contemplate 
the  possibility  of  any  real  conflict  between  the  individual 
and  the  social  Good ;  for  them  it  w^as  an  axiom  of  the 
moral  life  that  the  individual  received  back  with  interest 
that  which  he  gave  to  the  State.  In  the  Hellenic  State, 
of  course,  many  gave  without  receiving;  but  they  were 
not  regarded  as  citizens,  nor  did  their  life  enter  into  the 
ethical  problem.  The  many  existed  for  the  few,  but  the 
few  existed  for  themselves.  A  life  of  complete  self- 
culture  was  the  Greek  ideal,  and  one  could  never  be 
called  upon  to  sacrifice  any  part  of  this  life  for  the  sake 
of  "doing  good"  to  his  fellow-men.  But  Christianity, 
with  its  watchwords  of  "  service  "  and  "  philanthropy,"  has 
forced  us  to  realise  with  a  new  intensity  and  rigour  of 


296 


THE    MORAL   LIFE. 


THE    SOCIAL    LIFE. 


297 


conviction  the  claim  of  others  upon  our  life,  and  has 
left  no  part  of  our  life  exempt  from  the  claim.  Self- 
sacrifice,  rather  than  self-realisation,  has  become  the  prin- 
ciple of  life,  and  the  relation  of  the  one  principle  to  the 
other  has  become  the  most  baffting  problem  of  ethical 
thought.  How  far  shall  self-sacrifice  be  carried,  and  how 
far  does  a  loyal  and  thorough-going  self-sacrifice  interfere 
with  a  true  and  faithful  self-realisation  ? 

In  the  case  of  devotion  to  the  State,  w^e  must  say  that, 
while  the  life  of  true  citizenship  may  mean  for  the  indi- 
vidual a  willingness  to  die  for  his  country's  good,  and 
while  the  rightful  service  of  the  citizen  must  always  far 
transcend  the  limits  of  a  virtue  which  calculates  returns, 
yet  the  State  can  never  legitimately  demand  of  the  indi- 
vidual a  moral  sacrifice,  or  ask  him  to  be  false  to  his  own 
ideals  of  life.  The  State,  being  an  ethical  institution,  can- 
not, without  contradicting  its  own  nature,  contradict  the 
ethical  nature  of  the  individual.  And  what  is  true  of  the 
State  is  true  of  all  other  institutions,  as  the  Family  and 
the  Church.  In  the  case  of  all  institutional  life,  however, 
the  same  question  arises  as  in  the  individual  relations — 
viz..  How  far  is  the  individual  called  upon  to  sink  his 
own  well-being  in  that  of  others  ?  That  all  may  have  the 
opportunity  of  true  self-culture,  many  an  opportunity  of 
self-culture  must  be  sacrificed  by  the  few.  The  very  possi- 
bility of  social  progress  implies  such  sacrifice  on  the  part  of 
the  existing  society  for  the  sake  of  the  generations  to  come. 
And  often  friend  must  be  willing  to  make  this  sacrifice  for 
friend,  and  parent  for  child,  and  teacher  for  scholar,  and 
neif^hbour  for  nei^^hbour.  Whether  the  sacrifice  shall  ulti- 
mately  be  compensated  in  a  richer  and  completer  life  for 


the  individual  who  has  made  it,  is  a  question  which  proba- 
bly must  remain  unanswered ;  but  the  willingness  to  make 
the  sacrifice,  without  the  certainty  or  even  the  likelihood 
of  compensation,  would  seem  to  be  of  the  very  essence 
of  the  highest  goodness  we  know.  That  the  dualism  be- 
tween the  good  of  others  and  of  self  must  remain  per- 
manently unsolved,  we  can  hardly  think.  In  part,  indeed, 
we  have  already  seen  that  the  best  service  to  others  is  the 
true  service  of  ourselves,  that  the  most  effective  method  of 
doing  good  is  to  he  good,  that  the  truest  care  for  others  is 
to  keep  carefully  the  vineyard  of  our  own  nature.  We 
must  also  recognise  that  since  service  implies  the  "  gift " 
to  serve,  and  there  is  an  endless  "  diversity  of  gifts,"  he 
who  finds  his  peculiar  work  and  mission  for  others  finds 
that  into  which  he  can  put  himself, — the  channel  for  the 
expression  of  his  individual  capacities,  the  sphere  of  his 
self-realisation.  And  when  we  remember  that  the  Good  of 
the  moral  life  is  not  a  merely  individual  and  exclusive 
Good,  but  universal  and  identical  in  all,  the  postulate  of  an 
ultimate  harmony  between  the  life  of  Benevolence  and  the 
life  of  Culture  becomes  a  datum  of  our  faith  in  the  reason- 
ableness of  things. 

11,— The  Social  Organisation  of  Life :  the  Ethical  Basis  and 

Functions  of  the  State. 

6    The  moral  life,  on  its  social  side,  organises  itself  in  The  social 
certain  external  forms  generally  described  as  the  ethical  tion  of  life: 

1       rxi  1         r\yx.      t^i^  ethical 

institutions— e.^.,  the  Family,  the  State,  the  Church.     Ihe  lustitu- 
total  social  organisation  may  be  called  Society,  and  the  ciety'and 
most  important  of  its  special  forms— that  which  in  a  sense 


298 


THE   MORAL    LIFE. 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


299 


P 


includes  all  the  others — is  the  political  organisation,  or  the 
State.  Since  man  is  by  nature  and  in  his  ethical  life  a 
social  being,  he  is  inevitably  also  a  "  political "  being  (^coov 
ttoXltlkov).  The  question  is  thus  raised,  What  is  the  true 
form  of  social  organisation  ?  and,  more  particularly,  What 
is  the  ethical  basis  and  function  of  the  State  ?  How  far 
should  society  become  political  ? 

The  classical  world,  we  may  say,  had  no  idea  of  a  non- 
political  society ;  to  it  Society  and  the  State  were  synony- 
mous terms,  the  social  life  was  a  life  of  citizenship.  The 
distinction  between  Society  and  the  State  is  a  modern  one. 
The  Greek  State  was  an  adequate  and  satisfying  social 
sphere  for  the  individual ;  he  wanted  no  other  life  than  that 
of  citizenship,  and  could  conceive  no  perfect  life  for  him- 
self in  any  narrower  social  world  than  that  of  the  State. 
So  perfect  was  the  harmony  between  the  individual  and 
the  State  that  any  dissociation  of  the  one  from  the  other 
contradicted  the  individual's  conception  of  ethical  com- 
pleteness. It  is  to  this  sense  of  perfect  harmony,  this 
deep  and  satisfying  conviction  that  the  State  is  the  true 
and  sufficient  ethical  environment  of  the  individual,  that 
we  owe  the  Greek  conception  of  the  grand  significance  of 
the  State.  Our  modern  antithesis  of  the  individual  and 
the  State  is  unknown ;  the  individual  apart  from  the 
State  is  to  the  Greek  an  unethical  abstraction.  The 
ethical  individual  is,  as  such,  a  citizen ;  and  the  measure 
of  his  ethical  perfection  is  found  in  the  perfection  of  the 
State  of  which  he  is  a  citizen,  and  in  the  perfection  of  his 
citizenship.  W^e  find  this  characteristic  Greek  conception 
carried  to  its  consummation  in  the  '  Eepublic '  of  Plato. 
This  is  at  once  a  treatise  on  politics  and  on  ethics,  on  the 


State  and  on  Justice.  Plato's  problem  is  to  find  the  ideal 
State,  or  the  perfect  sphere  of  the  perfect  life.  The  good 
man  shall  be  the  good  citizen  of  the  good  State,  and  with- 
out the  outer  or  political  excellence  the  inner  or  ethical 
excellence  is  of  little  avail.  The  just  man  is  not  an  iso- 
lated product,  he  is  not  even  "  self-made  "  ;  he  grows  up  in 
the  perfect  State,  and  unconsciously  takes  on  the  colour  of 
its  laws  ;  he  is  its  scholar,  and  even  in  the  inmost  centres 
of  his  life  he  feels  its  beneficent  control.  To  separate  him- 
self from  it  in  any  particular  were  ethical  suicide ;  to  seek 
to  have  a  "  private  life,"  or  to  call  anything  "  his  own,"  were 
to  destroy  the  very  medium  of  his  moral  being,  to  seek  to 
play  his  part  without  a  stage  on  which  to  play  it.  That 
is  to  say,  social  organisation  is  necessary  to  the  perfection 
of  the  individual  life,  and  the  only  perfect  social  organisa- 
tion is  the  communistic  State,  which  directly  and  immedi- 
ately controls  the  individual,  and  recognises  no  rights, 
individual  or  social,  but  its  own. 

But  the  growing  complexity  of  the  ethical  problem, 
the  growing  perception  of  the  significance  of  personality, 
and  the  growing  dissatisfaction  with  the  State  as  the 
ethical  sphere  of  the  individual,  led  even  the  Greeks 
themselves  to  a  revision  of  their  view  of  the  relation 
of  the  individual  to  the  State.  Greek  ethics  close  with 
the  cry  of  individualism  and  cosmopolitanism.  The 
State  proved  its  ethical  insufficiency,  as  the  individual 
discovered  his  ethical  self-sufficiency ;  the  outward  failure 
co-operated  with  the  deeper  inward  reflection,  to  effect 
the  transition  from  the  ancient  to  the  modern  standpoint. 
Christianity,  with  its  universal  philanthropy,  its  obliter- 
ation   of    national   distinctions,   its   insistence   upon   the 


300 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


THE    SOCIAL    LIFE. 


301 


»i 


absolute  value  of  the  individual,  its  deeper  and  intenser 
appreciation  of  personality,  added  its  new  strength  to  the 
forces  already  in  operation.  The  political  societies  of 
the  ancient  world  were  gradually  supplanted  by  a  Cath- 
olic ecclesiastical  society.  The  Church  to  a  large  extent 
displaced  the  State,  and  reasserted  on  its  own  behalf  the 
State's  exclusive  claim  upon  the  life  of  the  individual. 
Controversy  was  thus  inevitably  aroused  as  to  the  respec- 
tive jurisdictions  of  Church  and  State.  The  Family,  too, 
acquired  a  new  importance  and  a  new  independence. 
The  break-down  of  Feudalism — the  political  order  of 
the  Middle  Age — was  followed  by  the  break-down  of  its 
ecclesiastical  order  also,  and  the  individual  at  last  stood 
forth  in  all  the  importance  of  his  newly  acquired  inde- 
pendence. Our  modern  history  has  been  the  story  of  the 
gradual  emancipation  of  the  individual  from  the  control 
of  the  State,  and  its  product  has  been  an  individualism 
in  theory  and  in  practice  which  represents  the  opposite 
extreme  from  the  political  socialism  of  the  classical  world. 
The  principle  of  individual  liberty  has  taken  the  place  of 
the  ancient  principle  of  citizenship.  We  have  become 
very  jealous  for  the  rights  of  the  individual,  very  slow  to 
recognise  the  rights  of  the  State.  Its  legitimate  activity 
has  been  reduced  to  a  minimum,  it  has  been  assigned 
a  merely  regulative  or  "  police  "  function,  and  has  been 
regarded  onlv  as  a  kind  of  balance-wheel  of  the  social 
machine.  Not  that  the  individual  has  emancipated  him- 
self from  society.  That  is  only  part  of  the  historical 
fact ;  it  is  no  less  true  that  the  various  extra-political 
forms  of  social  orcjanisation  have  assumed  functions 
formerly   discharged   by  the    State.      But   the   result  is 


the  same  in  either  case — viz.,  the  narrowing  of  the  sphere 
of  the  State's  legitimate  activity. 

Various  forces  have  conspired  to  bring  about  a  revision 
of  this  modern  theory  of  the  State  in  its  relation  to  the 
individual  and  to  the  other  forms  of  social  organisation. 
The  interests  of  security  have  been  threatened  by  the 
development  of  the  principle  of  individual  liberty  to  its 
extreme  logical  consequences  in  Anarchism  and  Nihilism, 
the  very  life,  as  well  as  the  property,  of  the  individual  is 
seen  to  be  endangered  by  the  gradual  disintegration  of  the 
State,  and  the  strong  arm  of  the  civil  power  has  come  to 
seem  a  welcome  defence  from  the  misery  of  subjection  to 
the  incalculable  caprice  of  "mob-rule."      Individualism 
has  almost  reached  its  recludio  ad  ahsurdum ;  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  mere  particular  has,  here  as  elsewhere,  proved 
itself  to  be  a  principle  of  disintegration.     That  each  shall 
be  allowed  to  live  for  himself  alone  is  seen  to  be  an 
impossible  and  contradictory  conception.    Experience  has 
taught  us  that  the  State  is  the  friend  of  the  individual, 
securing  for  him  that  sacred  sphere  of  individual  liberty 
which,  if  not  thus  secured,  would  soon  enough  be  entered 
and  profaned  by  other  individuals.     The  evils  of  a  non- 
political  or  anti- political  condition  of  "atomic"  individ- 
ualism have  been  brought  home  to  us  by  stern  experi- 
ences and  by  the  threatenings  of  experiences  even  sterner 
and  more  disastrous. 

The  complications  which  have  resulted  from  industrial 
competition,  the  new  difficulties  of  labour  and  capital 
which  have  come  in  the  train  of  Laissez  fcdre,  have  lent 
their  strength  to  emphasise  the  conviction  that  the  State, 
instead  of  being  the  worst  enemy,  is  the  true  friend  of  the 


302 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


individual.  The  doctrine  of  the  non-interference  by  the 
State  with  the  industrial  life  of  the  individual  has  pretty 
nearly  reached  its  reduction  to  absurdity.  The  evils  of 
unlimited  and  unregulated  competition  have  thrown  into 
clear  relief  the  advantages  of  co-operation ;  the  superior- 
ity of  organised  to  unorganised  activity  has  become  mani- 
fest. And  what  more  perfect  form,  it  is  said,  can  the 
organisation  of  industry  take  than  the  political?  Only 
through  the  nationalisation  of  industry,  it  is  felt  in  many 
quarters,  can  we  secure  that  liberty  and  equality  which 
capitalism  has  destroyed ;  only  by  making  the  State  the 
common  guardian,  can  we  hope  for  an  emancipation  from 
that  industrial  slavery  which  now  degrades  and  im- 
poverishes the  lives  of  the  masses  of  our  citizens. 
Capitalism  has  given  us  a  plutocracy  which  is  as  bane- 
ful as  any  political  despotism  the  world  has  seen;  we 
have  escaped  from  the  serfdom  of  the  feudal  State 
only  to  fall  into  the  new  serfdom  of  an  unregulated 
industrialism. 

The  evils  of  leaving  everything  to  "  private  enterprise  " 
force  themselves  upon  attention,  especially  in  the  case 
of  what  are  generally  called  "  public  interests "  —  those 
branches  of  activity  which  obviously  affect  all  alike,  such 
as  the  means  of  communication,  railways,  roads,  and  tele- 
graphs. A  more  careful  reflection,  however,  discovers  a 
certain  "  public "  value  in  all  forms  of  industry,  even  in 
those  which  are  apparently  most  "  private."  That  mutual 
industrial  dependence  of  each  on  all  and  all  on  each,  in 
which  Plato  found  the  basis  of  the  State,  has  once  more 
come  to  constitute  a  powerful  plea  for  the  necessity  of 
political  organisation,  and  we  have  a  new  State-Socialism 


THE   SOCIAL    LIFE. 


303 


which  maintains  that  the  equal  interests  of  each  can  be 
conserved  only  by  the  sacrifice  of  all  private  interests  to 
the  public  interest,  that  only  by  disallowing  the  distinc- 
tion between  mmm  and  tmim,  and  identifying  the  interest, 
of  each  with  that  of  all,  can  we  hope  to  establish  the  reign 
of  justice  among  men. 

One  other  force  has  contributed  to  the  change  of  stand- 
point which  we  are  considering  —  namely,  the  changed 
conception  of  tlie  State  itself.  The  progress  towards  indi- 
vidual freedom  has  at  the  same  time  been  a  progress 
towards  the  true  form  of  the  State;  and  as  the  oligar- 
chical and  despotic  have  yielded  to  the  democratic  type  of 
government,  it  has  been  recognised  that  the  State  is  not 
an  alien  force  imposed  upon  the  individual  from  without, 
but  that,  in  their  true  being,  the  State  and  the  individual 
are  identical.  Upon  the  ruins  of  the  feudal  State  the 
individual  has  at  length  built  for  himself  a  new  State,  a 
form  of  government  to  which  he  can  yield  a  willing  obedi- 
ence, because  it  is  the  creation  of  his  own  will,  and,  in 
obeying  it,  he  is  really  obeying  himself.     L'dtat  cest  moL 

Such  causes  as  these  have  led  to  the  return,  in  our  own 
time,  to  the  classical  conception  of  the  State  and  its  func- 
tions, and  to  the  substitution  of  the  question  of  the  rights 
of  the  State  for  the  question  of  the  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual. The  tendency  of  contemporary  thought  and  effort 
is,  on  the  whole,  to  extend  the  political  organisation  of 
society,  to  socialise  the  State  or  to  nationalise  Society. 
What,  then,  we  are  forced  to  ask,  is  the  ethical  basis  of 
the  State?  What,  in  its  principle  and  idea,  is  it?  If 
we  can  answer  this  question  of  the  ethical  basis  of  the 
State,  we  shall  not  find  much  difficulty  in  determining, 


304 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


Is  the 
State  an 
End-iu- 
itself? 


on  general  lines,  its  ethical  functions,  whether  negative 
or  positive,  whether  in  the  sphere  of  Justice  or  in  that 
of  Benevolence. 

• 

7.  From  an  ethical  standpoint  the  State  must  be  re- 
garded as  a  means,  not  as  in  itself  an  end.  The  State 
exists  for  the  sake  of  the  person,  not  the  person  for  the 
sake  of  the  State.  The  ethical  unit  is  the  person ;  and 
the  mission  of  the  State  is  not  to  supersede  the  person, 
but  to  aid  him  in  the  development  of  his  personality — 
to  give  him  room  and  opportunity.  It  exists  for  him, 
not  he  for  it ;  it  is  his  sphere,  the  medium  of  his  ethical 
life.  Here  there  is  no  real  difference  between  the  ancient 
and  the  modern  views  of  the  State  ;  in  principle  they  are 
at  one.  For  Plato  and  Aristotle,  as  for  ourselves,  the  State 
is  the  sphere  of  the  ethical  life,  the  true  State  is  the  com- 
plement of  the  true  individual,^-his  proper  milieu.  The 
Greek  State,  it  is  true,  as  it  actually  existed  and  even 
as  Plato  idealised  it,  contradicts,  in  some  measure,  our 
conception  of  personality ;  but  it  did  not  contradict  the 
Greek  conception  of  personality.  From  our  modern  stand- 
point, we  find  it  inadequate  for  two  reasons.  It  exists 
only  for  the  few,  the  many  exist  for  it ;  the  Greek  State 
is,  in  our  view,  an  exclusive  aristocracy,  from  the  privi- 
leges of  whose  citizenship  the  majority  are  excluded. 
Yet,  in  the  last  analysis,  we  find  that  the  end  for  which 
the  State  exists  is  the  person ;  those  who  exist  merely 
for  the  State  are  not  regarded  as  persons.  If  the  Greeks 
could  have  conceived  the  modern  extension  of  personality, 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  they  would  have  entirely  agreed 
with  the  modern   interpretation   of  the  relation  of  the 


THE    SOCIAL    LIFE. 


305 


State  to  the  individual.  Then,  in  the  second  place,  it  is 
to  be  noted  that,  with  all  their  intellectual  and  aesthetic 
appreciation,  the  Greeks  had  not  yet  so  fully  discovered 
the  riches  of  the  ethical  life.  With  our  profounder  appre- 
ciation of  the  significance  of  personality,  the  merely  in- 
strumental value  of  the  State  is  more  clearly  perceived. 
But  to  those  who  did  reflect  upon  its  essential  nature,  the 
Greek  State  also  was  a  creation  of  the  ethical  spirit, — the 
great  ethical  institution.  The  ancient,  as  well  as  the  modern 
State,  based  its  right  to  the  loyal  service  of  its  citizens 
upon  the  plea  that,  in  serving  it,  the  individual  was  really 
serving  himself  ;  that,  in  giving  up  even  his  all  to  it  and 
counting  nothing  "  his  own,"  he  would  receive  from  it  a 
return  of  full  and  joyous  life  out  of  all  proportion  to  what 
he  gave. 

It  is  only  when  we  reflect,  however,  that  we  discover 
this  instrumental  nature  of  the  State.  In  our  ordinary 
unreflective  thought  we  are  the  victims  of  the  association 
of  ideas,  and  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other  cases,  we  confuse 
the  means  with  the  end.  It  is  a  case  of  the  familiar 
"  miser's  consciousness."  As  the  miser  comes  to  think  of 
money,  because  of  its  supreme  instrumental  importance,  as 
an  end  in  itself,  and  to  regard  the  real  ends  of  life  as  only 
means  to  this  fictitious  end,  so  does  the  citizen  come  to 
regard  the  State,  because  of  its  supreme  importance  as 
the  medium  of  the  ethical  life,  as  itself  the  end,  and  him- 
self as  but  its  instrument.  Yet  it  is  the  function  of  a 
medium  to  mediate  and  fulfil,  not  to  negate  and  destroy, 
that  which  it  mediates ;  and  w^henever  we  reflect  we  see 
that  the  true  function  of  the  State  is  to  mediate  and  fulfil 
the  personal  life  of  the  citizen.     This  theoretic  insight  is, 

U 


306 


THE   MORAL   LIFE. 


of  course,  not  necessary  to  the  life  of  citizenship ;  we  may 
most  truly  use  the  State  for  this  highest  end,  when  we 
act  under  the  impulse  of  an  unreflecting  and  uncalculating 
loyalty  to  the  State  itself.  But  the  very  fact  that  we  can 
thus  serve  the  State  without  disloyalty  to  our  highest  Self 
implies  that  we  are  not  serving  two  masters,  that  the 
only  master  of  our  loyal  service  is  the  ethical  and  personal 
Ideal.  The  ultimate  sanction  and  measure  of  political 
obedience  is  found  in  the  ethical  value  of  the  State  as  the 
vehicle  of  the  personal  life  of  its  citizens. 

The  true  relation  of  the  State  to  the  individual  has 
been  obscured  in  modern  discussion  by  the  constant  an- 
tithesis of  "  State-action  "  and  "  Individualism."     The  an- 
tithesis is  inevitable  so  long  as  we  regard  the  individual 
as  a  mere  individual.     So  regarded,  he  is  like  an  atom  that 
resists  the  intrusion  of  every  other  atom  into  its  place ; 
the  mere  individual  is  anti-social  and  anti-political,  and  to 
"  socialise  "  or  "  nationalise  "  him  is  to  negate  and  destroy 
him.     His  life  is  one  of  "go-as-you-please,"  of  absolute 
laissez  /aire.     But  the  ethical  unit  is  not  such  a  mere 
atomic   individual,   but   the    person   who   is    social    and 
political  as  well  as  individual,  and  whose  life  is  forwarded 
and  fulfilled,  rather  than  negated,  by  the  political  and 
other  forms  of  social  organisation.     To  cut  him  off  from 
others,  to  isolate  him,  would  be  to  maim  and  stunt  his 
life.     That  the  State  has  seemed  to  encroach  upon  the  life 
of  the  ethical  person,  is  largely  due  to  the  constant  use  of 
the  term  "State-interference."     In   so  far  as  the  State 
may  be  said  to  "  interfere,"  it  is  only  with  the  individual, 
not  with  the  person  ;  and  the  purpose  of  its  "  interference  " 
always  is  to  save  the  person  from  the  interference  of  other 


THE    SOCIAL   LIFE. 


307 


individuals.  Neither  the  State  nor  the  individual  is  the 
ultimate  ethical  end  and  unit,  but  the  person.  "  The 
State  at  best  is  the  work  of  man's  feeble  hands,  working 
with  unsteady  purpose  ;  the  person,  with  all  his  claims,  is 
the  work  of  God."  ^  What  is  called  "  State-interference  " 
is  in  reality  the  maintenance  of  this  ethical  possibility, 
the  making  room  for  the  life  of  the  person.  If  all 
individuals  were  left  to  themselves,  they  would  not  leave 
each  other  to  themselves ;  but  individual  would  encroach 
upon  individual,  and  none  would  have  the  full  opportunity 
of  ethical  self-realisation. 

8.  Just  here  lies  the  ethical  problem  of  the  basis  of  the  The  ethical 
State.  The  essence  of  the  State  is  Sovereignty,  and  the  the  state. 
maintenance  of  the  Sovereign  Power  through  control  or 
coercion.  In  order  that  each  may  have  freedom  of  self- 
development,  each  must  be  restrained  in  certain  ways.  Is 
not  the  process  ethically  suicidal  ?  Is  not  the  personality 
destroyed  in  the  very  act  of  allowing  it  freedom  of  self- 
development  ?  Does  not  State  -  control  supplant  Self- 
control,  the  sovereignty  of  the  State  the  sovereignty  of 
Personality  ?  Does  not  the  political  negate  the  ethical  life, 
and  the  State  constrain  the  person  to  act  impersonally  ? 

Two  extreme  answers  are  offered  to  this  question.  The 
first  is  the  answer  of  Anarchism,  the  refusal  of  the  self 
to  acknowledge  any  control  from  without.  This  is  the 
answer  of  pure  Individualism,  and  confuses  liberty  with 
licence.  The  individual  who  refuses  to  acknowledge  any 
obligations  to  other  individuals,  and  denies  the  right  of 
society  to  control  his  life,  will  not  control  himself.     The 

^  Professor  Laurie,  '  Ethica,'  69  (second  ed.) 


308 


THE    MOEAL    LIFE. 


life  of  individuals  who  refuse  to  become  "  political,"  will 
be  a  "  state  of  war,"  if  not  so  absolute  as  Hobbes  has 
pictured  it,  yet  deplorable  enough  to  teach  its  possessors 
the  distinction  between  liberty  and  licence,  and  to  awaken 
in  them  the  demand  for  that  deliverance  from  the  evils 
of  unrestrained  individualism  which  comes  only  with  the 
strong  arm  of  law  and  government.  The  other  answer  is 
that  of  Despotism,  which  allows  no  freedom  to  the  individ- 
ual. This  would  obviously  de -personalise  man,  and,  de- 
priving him  of  his  ethical  prerogative  of  self-government, 
would  make  him  the  mere  instrument  or  organ  of  the 
Sovereign  Power.  Do  these  alternative  extremes  exhaust 
the  possibilities  of  the  case?  Is  Despotism  the  only 
escape  from  Anarchy;   can  we  not  have  liberty  without 

licence  ? 

It  seems  at  first  as  if  there  were  no  third  possibility,  as 
if  the  very  existence  of  the  State,  of  Law,  of  Government, 
carried  with  it  a  derogation  from  the  personal  life  of  the 
citizen.  So  far  as  its  dominion  extends,  the  State  seems 
to  take  the  management  of  his  life  out  of  the  individual's 
hands,  and  to  manage  it  for  him.  Another  Will  seems 
to  impose  its  behests  upon  the  individual  Will  or  Person, 
and  he  becomes  its  creature  and  servant ;  losing  his  self- 
mastery,  he  is  controlled  and  mastered  by  another  Will. 
"  It  is  the  specific  function  of  Government  to  impose  upon 
the  individual,  in  apparent  violation  of  his  claim  to  free 
self-determination,  an  alien  Will,  an  alien  Law.  .  .  .  Preach- 
ers and  teachers  try  to  instruct  us  as  to  what  course  our 
own  highest  reason  approves,  and  to  persuade  us  to  follow 
that  course.  When  they  have  failed,  Government  steps  in 
and  says  :  '  Such  and  such  are  the  true  principles  of  justice. 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


309 


I  command  you  to  obey  them.  If  you  do  not,  I  will  punish 
you.'"^  Autonomy  is  of  the  essence  of  the  moral  life, 
it  is  essentially  a  personal  life.  But  the  very  existence  of 
the  State  seems  to  imply  Heteronomy,  or  an  impersonal 
life  in  the  citizens.  The  difficulty  does  not  arise,  it  is  to 
be  observed,  from  the  artificiality  of  the  State,  or  from  the 
natural  egoism  of  human  nature.  Let  us  admit  that  the 
State  itself  is  the  product  and  creation  of  the  human 
spirit,  that  man  is  by  nature  a  political  being,  i.e.,  a  being 
whose  life  naturally  tends  to  the  political  form.  The 
question  is  whether  the  human  spirit  is  not  imprisoned 
in  its  own  creation,  w^hether  the  ethical  life  is  not  lost  in 
the  political,  autonomy  in  heteronomy. 

The  first  thing  to  be  noted  is,  that  the  imposition  of  the 
Will  of  another  upon  the  individual  does  not  destroy  the 
individual  Will.  We  are  apt  to  think  of  the  divine  Will 
as  so  imposed,  of  certain  restrictions  as  laid  by  the  very 
nature  of  things  upon  the  life  of  the  individual ;  yet  we  do 
not  find  in  this  any  infraction  of  human  Personality  or  Will. 
All  that  is  imposed  is  a  certain  form  of  outward  activity, 
the  inward  movement  of  the  Will  is  not  necessarily  touched. 
Thus,  all  that  is  enforced  by  the  political  Will  or  the 
Sovereign  Power  is  outward  obedience,  not  the  inward 
obedience  of  the  Will  itself.  It  is  for  the  individual  to 
say  whether  he  will  complete  the  outward  surrender  by 
the  inward  self -surrender.  He  may  render  either  an  out- 
ward conformity  or  an  inward  conformity,  the  act  re- 
quired may  be  performed  either  willingly  or  unwillingly. 
The  appeal  is  to  the  Will  or  Personality,  but  it  is  for  the 
Will  to  respond  or  not  to  the  appeal.     What  is  coerced  is 

1  Taylor,  '  The  Right  of  the  State  to  Be,'  44. 


310 


THE   MORAL   LIFE. 


the  expression  of  the  individuality  in  outward  act ;  the 
citizen  is  not  allowed  to  act  (outwardly)  as  the  creature 
of  ungoverned  impulse.  Not  that  the  task  of  self-control 
is  taken  out  of  his  hands,  or  his  individuality  mastered 
by  another  will  or  personality  rather  than  by  his  own. 
The  mastery  of  the  State  extends  only  to  the  expression 
of  individual  impulse  in  the  corresponding  outward  activ- 
ities. He  may  still  cherish  those  impulsive  tendencies  the 
expression  of  which  on  the  field  of  overt  activity  has  been  re- 
strained, as  the  criminal  so  often  does  cherish  his  criminal 
instincts  and  habits,  notwithstanding  the  outward  repres- 
The  criminal  may  remain  a  criminal,  though  the 


sion. 


State  prevents  his  commission  of  further  crime.  He  can- 
not be  mastered  by  another,  but  only  by  himself;  it  is 
for  liimself  alone,  by  an  act  of  voluntary  choice,  to  say 
whether  he  will  remain  a  criminal  or  not. 

By  its  punishments,  the  State  not  merely  restrains  the 
outward  activity  of  its  citizens;  it  further,  by  touching 
the  individual  sensibility,  appeals  to  the  person  to  exer- 
cise that  self-restraint  which  is  alone  permanently  effec- 
tive. It  is  for  the  person  to  say  whether  he  will  or  will 
not  exercise  such  self  -  restraint.  Just  in  so  far  as  he 
re-enacts  the  verdict  of  the  State  upon  his  life,  or  recog- 
nises the  justice  of  its  punishment,  just  in  so  far  as  he 
identifies  his  will  with  the  will  tliat  expresses  itself  in 
the  punishment,  and  what  was  the  will  of  another  becomes 
his  own  will,  is  the  result  of  such  treatment  permanently, 
and  thoroughly,  and  in  the  highest  sense  successful.  "When 
the  person  has  thus  taken  the  reins  of  the  government 
of  sensibility  into  his  own  hands,  political  coercion  ceases 
to  be  necessary.    The  will  now  expresses  itself  in  the  act. 


THE   SOCIAL    LIFE. 


311 


the  dualism  of  inward  disposition  and  outward  deed  has 
disappeared,  and  the  life  is,  even  in  these  particulars,  a 
personal  life.  • 

Thus  interpreted,  the  coercion  of  the  State  is  seen  to 
be  an  extension  of  the  coercion  of  Nature.  Nature  itself 
disallows  certain  lines  of  activity,  does  not  permit  us  to 
follow  every  impulse.  The  organisation  of  life  in  political 
society  implies  a  farther  restraint  upon  individual  ten- 
dencies to  activity,  a  certain  farther  organisation  or  co- 
ordination of  the  outward  activities.  But  the  organisation 
and  co-ordination  of  the  impiUsive  tendencies  to  activity, — 
this  is  in  the  hands  not  of  the  State  but  of  the  individual 
will.  The  right  of  the  State  to  coerce  the  individual,  in 
the  sense  indicated,  is  grounded  in  the  fact  that  it  exists 
for  the  sake  of  the  interests  of  personality.  As  these 
interests  are  superior  in  right  to  the  interests  of  mere 
individual  caprice,  so  are  the  laws  of  the  State  superior 
to  the  instincts  and  impulses  of  the  individual.  The 
State  restrains  the  expression  of  the  individuality  that 
it  may  vindicate  the  sacred  rights  of  personality  in  each 
individual.  Its  order  is  an  improvement  upon  the  order 
of  nature;  it  is  more  discriminating,  more  just,  more 
encouraging  to  virtue,  more  discouraging  to  vice.  The 
civil  order  foreshadows  the  moral  order  itself;  it  is  a 
"  version,"  the  best  available  for  the  time  and  place  and 
circumstances,  of  that  order. 

And  althoucrh  the  action  of  the  State  seems  at  first 
sight  to  be  merely  coercive,  and  its  will  the  will  of  an- 
other, a  closer  analysis  reveals  the  fundamental  identity 
of  the  State,  in  its  idea  at  least,  with  the  ethical  Person. 
The    sovereign   will    represents    the   individual   will,   or 


II 

s  I 


312 


THE   MORAL    LIFE. 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


313 


rather  the  "  general  will,"  of  the  individual  citizens.  Here, 
in  the  general  will  of  the  people,  in  the  common  per- 
sonality of  the  citizens,  is  the  true  seat  of  sovereignty. 
The  actual  and  visible  sovereign  or  government  is  rep- 
resentative of  this  invisible  sovereign.  The  supreme 
power  in  the  State,  whatever  be  the  form  of  government, 
is  therefore,  truly  regarded,  the  "  public  person,"  and,  in 
obeying  it,  the  citizens  are  really  obeying  their  common 
personality.  The  Sovereign  Power  is  "  the  public  person 
vested  with  the  power  of  the  law,  and  so  is  to  be  con- 
sidered as  the  image,  phantom,  or  representative  of  the 
commonwealth ; "  "  and  thus  he  has  no  will,  no  power,  but 
that  of  the  law."  ^  Obedience  to  the  State  is  obedience 
to  the  citizen's  own  better  self,  and,  like  Socrates,  we  ought 
not  to  "  disobey  a  better."  The  apparent  heteronomy  is 
really  autonomy  in  disguise ;  I  am,  after  all,  sovereign  as 
well  as  subject,  subject  of  my  own  legislation.  The  right  of 
the  State  is,  therefore,  supreme,  being  the  right  of  person- 
ality itself.  For  the  individual  to  assert  his  will  against 
the  will  of  the  State  is  ethically  suicidal.  Socrates  went 
willingly  to  death,  because  he  could  not  live  and  obey  the 
State  rather  than  God ;  he  accepted  "  the  will  of  the 
people  "  that  he  should  die.  Death  was  for  him  the  only 
path  of  obedience  to  both  the  outward  and  the  inward 
"  better."  The  individual  may  criticise  the  political  order, 
as  an  inadequate  version  of  the  moral  order.  He  may  try 
to  improve  upon  and  "  reform  "  it.  He  may  even  "  obey 
God  rather  than  man,"  and  refuse  the  inner  obedience  of 
the  will.  But,  where  the  State  keeps  within  its  proper 
function,  he  may  not  openly  violate  its  order. 

1  Locke,  '  Treatise  of  Civil  Government,'  Bk.  ii.  ch.  13. 


9.  If  the  State  should  step  beyond  its  proper  function,  and  The  limit 

T  T  0^  State 

invade  instead  of  protecting  the  sphere  of  personality ;  it  action. 
the  actual  State  should  not  merely  fall  short  of  but  con- 
tradict the  ideal, — then  the  right  of  rebellion  belongs  to 
the  subject.  If  a  revolution  has  become  necessary,  and 
if  such  revolution  can  be  accomplished  only  by  rebellion, 
rebellion  takes  the  place  of  obedience  as  the  duty  of  the 
citizen.  Even  in  his  rebellion  he  is  still  a  citizen,  loyal  to 
the  law  and  constitution  of  the  ideal  State  which  he  seeks 
by  his  action  to  realise. 

This  contradiction  may  occur  in  either  of  two  ways. 
In  the  first  place,  the  Sovereign  Power  may  not  be  repre- 
sentative or  "  public,"  but  may  act  as  a  private  person  or 
body  of  persons.  As  Locke  again  says :  "  When  he  quits 
this  public  representation,  this  public  will,  and  acts  by  his 
own  private  will,  he  degrades  himself,  and  is  but  a  single 
private  person  without  power,  and  without  will  that  has 
any  right  to  obedience — the  members  owing  no  obedience 
but  to  the  public  will  of  the  society."  The  true  sovereign 
must  count  nothing  his  own,  must  have  no  private  in- 
terests in  his  public  acts ;  his  interests  must  be  those  of 
the  people,  and  their  will  his.  If  he  acts  otherwise,  as- 
serting his  own  private  will,  and  subordinating  the  good 
of  the  citizens  to  his  own  individual  good,  he  thereby 
uncrowns  himself,  and  abnegates  his  sovereignty.  Then 
comes  the  time  for  the  exercise  of  the  "  supreme  power 
that  remains  still  in  the  people."  The  necessity  of  the 
English  and  the  French  Eevolution,  for  example,  lay  in 
the  fact  that  the  actual  State  contradicted  the  ideal,  seek- 
ing to  destroy  those  rights  of  personality  of  which  it  ought 
to  have  been  the  custodian,  and  to  which  it  was  called  to 


1 1 

11 


314 


THE   MORAL    LIFE. 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


315 


give  an  account  of  its  stewardship.  At  such  a  time  the 
common  Personality,  in  whose  interest  the  State  exists, 
must  step  forth,  assert  itself  against  the  so-called  "  State," 
and,  condemning  the  actual,  give  birth  to  one  that  shall 
be  true  to  its  own  idea,  that  shall  help  and  not  hinde::  its 
citizens  in  their  life  of  self-realisation.  The  power  re- 
turns to  its  source,  the  "  general  will,"  which  is  thus  forced 
to  find  for  itself  a  new  and  more  adequate  expression. 

This  brings  us  to  the  second  form  of  the  contradiction 
between  the  actual  and  the  ideal  State.  When  the  present 
formulation  of  the  general  will  has  become  inadequate,  it 
must  be  re-formulated ;  and  this  re-formulation  of  its  will 
by  the  people  may  also  mean  revolution  as  well  as  reform- 
ation. The  actual  sovereign  or  government  is  the  steward 
of  that  power  whose  real  seat  is  in  the  will  of  the  people, 
and  mav  be  called  before  that  bar  to  o^ive  an  account  of 
its  stew^ardship.  Such  a  criticism  and  modification  of  the 
State  is  indeed  always  going  on,  "  public  opinion "  is 
always  more  or  less  active,  and  more  or  less  articulate, 
and  it  is  the  function  of  the  Statesman  to  interpret, 
as  well  as  to  guide  and  form,  this  "  public  opinion." 
As  long  as  there  is  harmony  between  the  "  general  will " 
and  the  will  of  the  government,  as  long  as  the  govern- 
ment is  truly  "  representative  "  of  the  governed,  so  long 
the  State  exists  and  prospers.  As  soon  as  there  is  discord, 
and  the  government  ceases  to  "represent"  the  general 
will,  so  soon  does  a  new  delegation  of  sovereignty  become 
necessary.  "Emperors,  kings,  councils,  and  parliaments, 
or  any  combinations  of  them,  are  only  the  temporary 
representatives  of  something  that  is  greater  than  they."  ^ 

^  D.  G.  Ritchie,  '  Principles  of  State  Interference,'  69. 


"  The  acts  of  the  government  in  every  country  which  is  not 
on  the  verge  of  a  revolution  are  not  the  acts  of  a  minority 
of  individuals,  but  the  acts  of  the  uncrowned  and  in- 
visible sovereign,  the  spirit  of  the  nation  itself."  ^  In  the 
very  indeterminateness  of  the  general  w^ill, — in  the  fact  that 
no  one  of  its  determinations  or  definitions  of  itself  is  final, 
that  no  actualisation  of  it  exhausts  its  potentiality  or  fixes 
it  in  a  rigid  and  unchanging  form ;  that,  like  an  organ- 
ism, it  grows  and  in  its  growth  is  capable  of  adapting  . 
itself  always  to  its  new  conditions;  that,  like  the  indi- 
vidual will,  it  learns  by  experience  and  allows  its  past 
to  determine  its  present, — lies  the  undying  strength  and 
vitality  of  that  invisible  State  which  persists  through  all 
the  changing  forms  of  its  visible  manifestation. 

10.  The  State,  being  the  medium  of  the  ethical  life  of  The  ethical 

"■         -,  .      ,  «  .  --.  \     1  1-        functions 

the  individual,  has  two  ethical  functions  :  (1)  the  negative  of  the 

State  • 

function  of  securing  to  the  individual  the  opportunity  of  («)  justice, 
self-realisation,  by  protecting  him  from  the  encroachments 
of  other  individuals  or  of  non-political  forms  of  society 
—the  function  of  Justice ;  (2)  the  positive  improvement 
of  the  conditions  of  the  ethical  life  for  each  of  its  citi- 
zens— the  function  of  Benevolence.  In  the  exercise  of 
the  former  function,  the  State  cares  for  the  interests  of 
"  being,"  in  the  exercise  of  the  latter  it  cares  for  the  in- 
terests of  "  well-being  " ;  and  as  the  interests  of  "  being  " 
or  "  security  "  precede  in  imperativeness  those  of  "  well- 
being,"  so  is  the  political  duty  of  Justice  prior  to  that  of 
Benevolence.  In  the  case  of  the  State,  as  in  that  of  the  in- 
dividual, however,  the  one  duty  passes  imperceptibly  into 

1  *  Principles  of  State  Interference,'  74. 


316 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


317 


the  other,  and  Benevolence  is  seen  to  be  only  the  higher 
Justice.  This  relation  of  the  positive  to  the  negative 
function  suggests,  what  a  closer  consideration  makes  very 
plain,  that  there  is  no  logical  basis  for  the  limitation  of 
State-action  to  Justice,  and  that  those  who  would  thus 
limit  it  are  seeking  artificially  to  arrest  the  life  of  the  State 
at  the  stage  of  what  we  may  call  the  lower  Justice. 

Even  at  this  stage  the  activity  of  the  State  is,  in  its 
essence,  the  same  as  it  is  at  the  higher  stages  of  that 
activity.  Even  here  the  function  is  not  a  mere  "  police  " 
one ;  even  here  the  State  "  interferes  "  with  the  individual. 
To  protect  the  individual  from  the  aggression  of  other 
individuals  and  of  society,  the  State  must  "interfere" 
with  the  individual,  and  be  in  some  considerable  measure 
"aggressive."  Already  the  imagined  "sphere"  of  sheer 
independent  and  private  individuality  has  been  penetrated, 
and  the  right  of  the  State  to  act  within  that  "sphere" 
established.  While  it  is  true  that  the  preservation  of  the 
integrity  of  the  individual  life  implies  a  large  measure  of 
freedom  from  government  control,  it  is  also  true  that  the 
only  way  to  secure  such  freedom  for  the  individual  is  by 
a  large  measure  of  such  control.  If  other  individuals 
and  non-political  society  are  not  to  encroach  upon  the 
individual  and  destroy  his  freedom,  the  State  must  be 
allowed  to  encroach  and  set  up  its  rule  within  the  life  of 
the  individual.  The  tyranny  of  the  individual  and  the 
tyranny  of  unofficial  "  public  opinion  "  are  not  to  be  com- 
pared in  evil  with  what  some  are  pleased  to  call  the 
"  tyranny  "  of  the  State.  The  justification  of  "  State-in- 
terference "  in  all  its  forms  is,  as  we  have  seen,  that  it  is 
exercised  in  the  interest  of  individual  freedom. 


The  fundamental  limitation,  as  well  as  the  fundamental 
vindication,  of  State-action  is  found  in  its  ethical  basis. 
Since  the  Stat.e  exists  as  the  medium  of  personal  life,  the 
limit  of  its  action  is  reached  at  the  point  where  it  begins 
to   encroach  upon  and  negate  the   strictly  personal   life 
of  the  citizen.     The  State  must  maintain  the  life  of  the 
individual,  not  simply  annex  and  take  possession  of  it  for 
itself;  it  must  not  abolish  but  establish  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual.    If  the  individual  apart  from  the  State  is  "  as 
cood  as  nothim?,"  a  State  in  which  the  individual  is  lost 
is  no  true  State.     The  best  State  is  that  in  whose  citizen- 
ship the  individual  most  fully  lives  his  own  individual 
life,  that  which  includes,  and  integrates  in  a  higher  and 
richer  unity,  the  greatest  number  of  individual  elements, 
and,  like  an  organism,  incorporates  in  its  own  total  life  the 
lives  of  its  several  members.     The  sim'plest  State  is  likely 
to  be  the  worst  rather  than  the  best,  since  in  the  best 
there  must  be  room  for  indefinite  differentiation  without 
the  loss  of  the  State's  integrity.     The  true  unity  is,  here  as 
elsewhere,  unity  in  difference.     The  true  political  identity 
is  that  which,  like  the  identity  of  the  organism,  conceals 
itself  in  endless  differentiation  of  structure  and  function. 
If  the  idea  of  the  State  is  not  to  be  contradicted,  room 
must  be  found  in  it  for  the  ethical  individual  in  all  the 
wealth  of  his  individual  possibilities.     Does  not  the  State 
exist  to  provide  the  true  sphere  for  the  actualisation  of 
these  possibilities  ? 

Take,  for  example,  the  question  of  the  attitude  of  the 
State  to  individual  "  property."  From  of  old  the  spell  of 
the  simple  or  communistic  State  has  fascinated  the  im- 
agination of  political   speculators.     It   has   seemed  self- 


m 


318 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


evident  that  community  of  interest  implies  community  of 
property,  that,  in  the  ideal  State,  the  citizens  shall  have  all 
things  in  common  and  none  shall  call  anvthinc:  his  own. 
For  must  not  private  property  create   private  interests, 
and  must  not  private  interests  undermine  the  public  in- 
terest ?     What  guarantee,  then,  for  unity  and  identity  of 
interest  but  the  abolition  of  private  interests  ?     Yet  since 
these  private  interests  have  their  roots  in  the  very  being  of 
the  individual,  they  cannot  be  eradicated,  and  must  always 
cause  disaffection  to  spring  up  towards  the  State  which 
seeks  to  uproot  them.      The  true  function  of  the  State 
surely  is  to  act  as  the  custodian  and  interpreter  of  this,  as 
of  all  other  aspects  of  the  individual  life.    The  interests 
of  property  are  part  of  the  interests  of  "  security."     The 
State  must  secure  to  the  individual  not  merely  the  oppor- 
tunity of  exercising  his  powers  of  activity ;  it  must  also 
secure  to  him  the  fruits  of  such  activity,  and  the  larger 
opportunity  which   comes  with   the   possession  of   these 
fruits.     In  other  words,  the  State  is  the  custodian   not 
only  of  the  "  personal,"  but  also  of  the  "  real,"  rights  of 
the  individual.    For  these  "  real "  rights  or  rights  of  prop- 
erty are  properly,  as  Hegel  shows,  personal  rights,  rights 
of  the  person ;  property  is  the  expression  of  personality. 
My  will  sets  its  stamp  upon  the  thing  or  the  animal,  and 
makes  it  mine,  makes  it,  as  it  were,  part  of  me.     Owner- 
ship is  founded  deep  in  the  nature  of  man  as  an  ethical 
being,  and  the  only  absolute  limit  to  it  is  the  ethical  limit 
of  personality  itself.     A  person  cannot  strictly  own  another 
person ;  he  may  buy  his  services,  but  not  himself.     The 
essence  of  slavery  is  the  assertion  of  this  impossible  and 
suicidal  right  to  ownership  of  the  man  in  his  entire  per- 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


319 


sonality,  in  the  whole  range  of  his  activities ;  which  is  to 
de-personalise  the  man,  and  treat  him  as  if  he  were  only 
an  animal  or.  a  thing.  But  whatever  it  be  upon  which  I 
have  put  the  stamp  of  my  will,  into  which  I  have  put 
myself,  that  is  mine.  Eights  of  property  are  essentially, 
like  all  rights,  personal— the  creation  and  expression  of 
personality. 

The  State  is  the  custodian  and  interpreter  of  these 
rights;  it  does  not  create,  and  cannot  destroy  them. 
Its  function  is  to  recognise,  establish,  and  formulate  them 
in  law ;  its  law  is  only  a  "  version  "  of  moral  law.  It  is 
for  the  State  to  define  the  rights  of  property,  to  formulate 
them ;  and  the  appeal,  in  cases  of  dispute,  is  to  the  State 
through  its  courts  of  Justice.  But  the  State,  through  its 
courts,  seeks  to  dispense  that  moral  Justice  to  which  the 
legal  is  only  an  approximation.  It  recognises  rights  in 
equity,  as  well  as  in  justice,  and  has  its  courts  to  dispense 
them.  And  while  the  power  of  the  State  is  here  also,  by 
its  very  nature,  sovereign,  yet  the  seat  of  sovereignty  is 
really  in  the  general  will  of  the  citizens;  and  as  soon 
as  the  general  will  has  definitely  decided  that  the  civil 
version  of  the  moral  law  of  property  is  inadequate,  and 
that  an  improved  version  is  possible,  the  amendment  will 

be  made. 

Pdghts  of  property,  again,  give  rise  to  rights  of  contract. 
Contract  is  not  the  source  of  property,  still  less  the  source 
of  the  State  itself;  but  the  State  and  property  having 
been  created,  contract,  with  its  new  rights  (which  are 
but  extensions  of  the  old)  ensues.  I  have  control  of 
my  property  :  it  is  mine,  it  is  part  of  myself.  My  freedom 
has  entered  into  it,  and  characterises  it.     The  disposition 


320 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


') 


'ii 


of  it  is  in  my  own  hands ;  I  have  the  right  of  use  and  ex- 
change, as  well  as  of  possession.  This  right  also  the  State 
must  establish  and  interpret,  not  destroy.  Yet  it  is  often 
argued  that,  as  the  State  ought  to  be  the  sole  owner,  so  it 
ought  to  be  the  sole  disposer  of  property ;  that  here  again 
the  individual  life,  instead  of  beinor  maintained  and  res- 
ulated,  should  be  simply  absorbed  by  the  State. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that,  in  thus  limiting  the  functions 
of  the  State,  we  are  not  maintaining  individualism  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  that  term.  The  individual  for  whose 
sake  the  State  exists  is  the  ethical  individual  or  the 
person,  and  his  "security"  from  the  encroachment  of 
other  individuals  implies  a  large  measure  of  State  con- 
trol or  "  interference."  The  State  must  not  only  establish 
the  right  of  the  individual  to  "  his  own  "  and  to  the  dis- 
position of  "  his  own  "  ;  it  must  also  correct  the  abuses 
which  are  apt  to  occur  in  these  spheres  of  the  individual 
life.  For  it  is  as  true  in  the  life  of  ownership  as  in  other 
spheres  that  "  no  man  liveth  to  himself."  The  individual 
cannot  isolate  himself,  even  in  these  particulars  of  his 
conduct;  in  them  also  his  life  has  a  public,  as  well  as 
a  private  side.  And  if  great  possession,  instead  of  being 
used  as  a  great  ethical  opportunity,  becomes  an  instru- 
ment of  moral  evil  to  other  citizens,  it  is  for  the  State 
to  intervene  and,  it  may  be,  to  interdict.  The  rule  is  the 
constant  one  of  guarding  the  security  of  personal  rights. 
Xo  criterion  of  amount  can  be  laid  down  a  priori,  cer- 
tainly no  rule  of  abstract  "equality."  But,  when  the 
individual  owner  abuses  his  rights  as  a  proprietor,  that 
is,  where  he  so  uses  them  as  to  injure  the  free  and  fruit- 
ful self-development  of  others,  the  State  may  step  in.     It 


THE    SOCIAL   LIFE. 


321 


is  a  case  of  punishment,  and  does  not  amount  to  a  viola- 
tion of  the  rights  of  personality.  It  is  the  freaks  of  the 
man's  individuality — his  greed,  his  laziness,  his  selfish 
indifference,  that  are  punished  (and  the  life  of  ownership 
is  liable  to  such  freaks  like  any  other  life),  not  the  essen- 
tial and  inviolable  life  of  the  person.  The  State  may 
even  generalise  from  its  experience  of  the  actual  working 
of  private  ownership  in  the  case  of  particular  commodities 
and  industries,  of  land,  or  of  public  services,  and  decide 
to  nationalise  them.  The  sphere  of  private  ownership 
may  thus  be  limited  by  the  State,  on  the  principle  that 
the  free  and  equal  self-development  of  all  its  citizens  is 
the  treasure  in  its  keeping.  In  comparison  with  this, 
the  selfish  satisfaction  of  the  individual  is  of  no  account, 
and  must  be  sacrificed.  But  the  theory  of  Communism 
or  State-Socialism, — that  the  State  shall  be  the  sole  pro- 
prietor, is  suicidal,  destroying  as  it  does  those  very  rights 
of  personality  which  are  the  basis  of  the  rights  of  pro- 
perty, and  in  the  absence  or  annihilation  of  which  the 
State  itself,  as  an  ethical  institution,  would  have  no  ex- 
istence, or  at  least  no  raison  d'itre, 

A  further  limitation  is  set  to  the  action  of  the  State 
by  the  principle  of  the  existence  and  freedom  of  other 
social  institutions  within  it.  The  completely  commun- 
istic or  socialistic  State  would  absorb  into  itself,  along 
with  the  individual,  all  extra-political  forms  of  associ- 
ation, and  would  identify  Society  with  the  State.  Now, 
it  is  obvious  that  no  form  of  social  organisation  can  be,  in 
an  absolute  sense,  "  extra-political,"  inasmuch  as  these 
minor  societies  must  all  alike  be  contained  within  the 
larger  society  which  we  call  the  State.    They,  like  the 

X 


*J  m^  mA 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


THE   SOCIAL    LIFE. 


323 


individual,  depend  upon  the  State  for  their  very  existence. 
Yet  each  of  these  minor  societies  has  a  sphere  of  its  own, 
which  the  State  preserves  from  invasion  by  any  of  the 
others,  and  which  the  State  itself  must  not  invade.  Each 
must  be  allowed  to  exercise  its  own  peculiar  functions, 
with  due  regard  to  the  functions,  equally  rightful,  of  the 
others.  Even  the  State  must  not  usurp  the  functions  of 
any  other  ethical  institution.  It  has  its  genius,  they  have 
theirs ;  and  as  they  recognise  its  rights,  it  must  recognise 
theirs  also.  The  most  important  of  these  institutions 
wdthin  the  State  are  the  Family  and  the  Church.  The 
function  of  the  State  is  not  paternal,  it  does  not  stand  in 
loco  2)cirejitis  to  the  citizen ;  nor  is  its  function  ecclesiasti- 
cal, Church  and  State  are  not  to  be  identified.  The  State 
is  the  guardian  of  these  institutions  ;  but  the  very  notion  of 
such  guardianship  is  that  that  which  is  guarded  shall  be 
maintained  in  its  integrity,  and  allowed  to  fulfil  its  own 
proper  work  and  mission  for  mankind.  In  the  exercise  of 
this  guardianship,  the  State  may  be  called  upon  to  act 
vicariouslv  for  the  institutions  under  its  care :  but  its 
further  duty  must  always  be,  so  to  improve  the  conditions 
of  institutional  life,  that  that  life  shall  pursue  its  own  true 
course  without  interference  or  assistance  from  without. 
Institutions,  like  individuals,  must  be  "helped  to  help 
themselves."  Eor  example,  the  State  may  be  called  upon 
not  merely  to  superintend  the  institution  of  the  Family,  but 
to  discharge  duties  which,  in  an  ideal  condition  of  things, 
would  be  performed  by  the  parent.  The  State  may  also 
not  merely  recognise  the  right  of  ecclesiastical  association, 
but  even  establish  and  endow  an  ecclesiastical  society. 
All  that  is  ethically  imperative  is  that,  within  the  Church 


I 


i 


and  within  the  Family,  freedom  of  initiation  and  self- 
development  be  allowed ;  that  each  institution  be  permitted 
to  work  out  its  own  career,  and  to  realise  its  own  peculiar 
genius.  On  the  other  hand,  neither  the  Family  nor  the 
Church  must  be  allowed  to  encroach  upon  the  proper 
functions  of  the  State ;  here  the  State  must  defend  its 
own  prerogative.  In  general,  the  political,  the  domestic, 
and  the  ecclesiastical  functions  must  be  kept  separate, 
since,  however  closely  they  may  intertwine,  each  deals 
with  a  distinct  aspect  of  human  life. 

The  final  principle  of  limitation — that  which  in  a  sense 
underlies  the  others  mentioned — is  the  principle  of  indi- 
vidual freedom.  The  State  may  not  use  the  individual  as 
its  mere  instrument  or  organ.  In  a  sense,  and  up  to  a 
certain  point,  it  may  and  must  do  so ;  only  it  must  not 
appropriate,  or  altogether  nationalise  him.  The  industrial 
State,  e.g.,  of  many  Socialists,  would  reduce  the  individual 
to  a  mere  crank  in  the  social  or  political  machine.  But 
if  we  thus  destroy  the  proper  life  of  the  individual  for 
himself,  we  undo  the  very  work  we  are  trying  to  do. 
Ultimately  the  State  exists  for  the  individual,  and  it  is 
only  because  the  individual — some  individual — gets  back 
wdth  the  interest  of  an  added  fulness  and  joy  in  life  what 
the  individual  has  given  to  the  State  in  loyal  service,  that 
the  service  is  ethically  justified.  The  State  has  a  tre- 
mendous and  indefinite  claim  upon  the  citizen,  but  that 
claim  is  only  the  reflection  of  the  individual's  claim  upon 
the  State.  The  Socialism  which  neglects  the  individual 
side  of  this  claim  is  no  less  unsound  than  the  Anarchism 
which  neglects  its  social  side.  The  measure  of  the  service 
which  the  State  can  demand  of  the  individual  is  foimd  in 


324 


THE   MORAL   LIFE. 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


325 


(h)  Benev- 
olence. 


his  manhood.  If  the  individual  is  not  an  independent 
unit,  neither  is  he  a  mere  instrument  for  the  production 
of  national  wealth.  The  true  wealth  or  well-being  of  the 
nation  lies  in  the  well-being  of  its  individual  citizens ;  and 
if  this  universal  well-being  can  be  reached  only  through 
that  partial  sacrifice  of  individual  well-being  which  is  im- 
plied in  the  discharge  by  the  individual  of  the  functions 
demanded  by  the  State  as  a  whole,  the  limit  to  such  a 
demand  is  found  in  the  right  of  the  individual  to  the 
enjoyment  of  a  return  for  his  service  in  a  higher  and  fuller 
capacity  of  life.  In  the  language  of  political  economy,  the 
individual  is  a  consumer  as  well  as  a  producer,  and  even 
if  in  his  latter  capacity  he  were  "  exploited  "  by  the  State, 
he  would  still  in  the  former  have  claims  as  an  individual. 
It  is  probably  because  the  emphasis  is  placed  on  the  pro- 
duction, and  the  consumption  is  so  largely  ignored,  that 
the  communistic  State  proves  so  fascinating  to  many. 
But,  in  truth,  regard  must  be  had  to  the  individual  life 
in  both  these  aspects,  if  it  is  not  to  suffer  in  both.  The 
State,  in  short,  must  not  demand  the  entire  man  ;  to  do  so 
is  to  destroy  its  own  idea.  The  most  perfect  State  will 
be  that  in  which  there  is  least  repression,  and  most  en- 
couragement and  development,  of  the  free  life  of  a  full 
individuality  in  the  citizens. 

11.  Within  these  ethical  limits  the  State  may  do  any- 
thing, and  need  count  nothing  human  foreign  to  its 
province.  The  State  has  positive  as  well  as  negative 
functions;  it  may  set  itself  to  effect  the  higher  as  well 
as  the  lower,  the  spiritual  as  well  as  the  material,  welfare 
of  its  citizens.    There  is,  of  course,  no  special  virtue  in 


the  fact  that  a  thing  is  done  by  the  State  rather  than  by 
some  other  agency.  The  reason  for  the  exercise  of  the 
higher  functions  by  the  State  is  the  practical  one,  that 
the  action  of  the  State  is  most  effective  and  on  the  largest 
scale.  The  State,  e.g.,  can  care  for  the  education  of  its 
citizens,  as  no  individual  or  group  of  individuals  can.  We 
must  remember  also  that  the  action  of  the  State  may  be 
indirect  as  well  as  direct,  local  as  well  as  central.  What 
functions  the  State  shall  take  upon  itself  in  any  particular 
country,  how  far  it  shall  go  in  their  discharge,  and  how 
long  it  shall  continue  to  discharge  them, — these  are  ques- 
tions of  practical  politics,  to  be  answered  by  the  States- 
man, and  not  by  the  political  philosopher.  All  that  Ethics, 
in  particular,  can  do  is  to  formulate  the  ethical  principles 
of  State-action  in  general. 

How  the  negative  function  of  the  State  passes  into  the 
positive,  its  activities  of  Justice  into  those  of  Benevolence, 
may  be  indicated  in  one  or  two  of  its  chief  aspects.  The 
protection  of  the  individual  (or  rather  of  the  community 
of  individuals)  from  the  evils  of  ignorance  implies,  especi- 
ally in  a  democracy,  the  education  of  the  citizens.  Com- 
pulsory, and  even  under  certain  conditions  free,  education 
thus  become  necessities  of  political  well-being ;  and  once 
the  process  of  education  has  been  undertaken  by  the  State, 
it  is  difficult  to  say  where  it  shall  be  abandoned.  For  the 
higher  education,  even  though  limited  directly  to  the  few, 
penetrates,  perhaps  no  less  effectively  than  the  lower,  the 
mass  of  the  citizens  and  affects  the  common  weal.  Every 
loyal  citizen  may  well,  with  John  Knox,  thank  God  for 
"another  scholar  in  the  land."  Again,  the  permanent 
and  thorough-going  prevention  of  crime  implies  a  concern 


326 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


for  the  positive  ethical  well-being  of  the  criminal.     Pun- 
ishment, in  the  older  sense,  is  now  seen  to  be  a  very 
inadequate  method  of  social  protection.     The  only  way  in 
which  the  State  can  permanently  deter  the  criminal  from 
crime  is  by  undertaking  his  education  as  a  moral  being, 
and  providing  for  him,  as  far  as  may  be,  the  stimulus  to 
goodness.     Only  in  so  far  as  punishment  is  reformative 
and  educative,  is  it  truly  deterrent.     Further  than  this, 
and  still  in  the  interests  of  "  security,"  as  well  as  those 
of  well-being,  the  State  must  remove  as  far  as  possible  the 
stimulus  to  crime  that  comes  from  extreme  poverty;  it 
must  so  far  equalise  the  conditions  of  industrial  life,  as 
to  secure  to  each  citizen  the  opportunity  of  earning  an 
honest  livelihood.     And,  if  it  would  prevent  the  general 
loss  which  comes  from  the  existence  of  a  pauper  class,  the 
State  must  take  measures  to  secure  the  individual  against 
the  risk  of  becoming  a  burden  to  society ;  by  taking  upon 
itself  the  burden  of  providing  him  with  the  opportunity 
of  self-maintenance,  it  will  save  itself  from  the  later  and 
heavier  burden  of  maintaining  him.     Since,  also,  the  pro- 
gress of  society  must  often  mean  a  temporary  injustice  to 
the   individual,  the   State   must,  again  in  its  own  per- 
manent interest,  provide  some  remedy  for  this  injustice. 
Social  progress  "  costs  "  much,  and  it  is  for  the  State  to 
reckon  up  these  costs  of  progress,  and,  as  far  as  possible, 
to  make  them  good  to  its  citizens.^    The  State  must  seek 
to  maintain  the  equilibrium  which  progress  seems  always 
temporarily  to  disturb. 


1  Cf.  Professor  H.  C.  Adams's  suggestive  article,  entitled,  "  An  Inter- 
pretation of  the  Social  Movements  of  our  Time,"  '  International  Journal 
of  Ethics,'  October  1891. 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


327 


When,  however,  we  realise  the  fuller  meaning  of  the 
State  as  an  ethical  institution,  nay,  as  the  all-containing 
ethical  institution,  we  see  that  it  must  go  further  than 
that  indirect  or  secondary  Benevolence  which  is  implied 
in  the  lower  or  ordinary  Justice.  The  sphere  of  the 
higher  Justice  or  that  of  true  Benevolence  is  part  of 
the  sphere  of  the  State's  legitimate  activity.  This  higher 
justice  means  that  all  be  provided  with  the  opportunity 
of  the  ethical  life  which  is  so  apt,  even  in  our  own 
civilisation,  to  be  open  only  to  the  few.  It  is  for  the 
State  to  emancipate  from  the  slavery  of  social  condi- 
tions the  toiling  masses  of  society,  to  endow  those  who 
are  citizens  only  in  name  with  a  real  ethical  citizen- 
ship, to  make  those  who  have  neither  part  nor  lot  in  the 
true  life  of  humanity  heirs  of  its  wealth  and  partakers  in 
its  conquests.  The  development  of  our  modern  industrial 
system  has  given  us  back  the  essential  evils  of  ancient 
slavery  and  of  feudal  serfdom  in  a  new  and,  in  many 
ways,  an  aggravated  form.  To  the  "  working  class,"  to  the 
"  hands,"  into  which  machinery  and  free  competition  have 
transformed  the  masses  of  our  modern  population  —  to 
these  the  State  must  give  not  merely  the  political  fran- 
chise, but  the  ethical  franchise  of  a  complete  and  worthy 
human  life.  As  the  custodian  of  the  ethical  interests,  and 
not  merely  of  the  material  interests  of  its  citizens,  the 
State  must  see  that  the  former  are  not  sacrificed  to  the 
latter.  The  political  sphere,  being  the  ethical  sphere,  in- 
cludes the  industrial  as  it  includes  all  others ;  and  while 
the  industrial  life  ought  to  be  allowed  to  follow  its  own 
economic  laws  in  so  far  as  such  independence  is  consistent 
with  ethical  well-being,  it  is  for  the  State  to  co-ordinate 


328 


THE   MORAL   LIFE. 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


329 


the  industrial  with  the  ethical  life.    Industry  is  an  ethical 
activity,  and  must  be  regulated  by  ethical  as  well  as  by 
economic  law ;   there  must  be  no  schism  in  the  body- 
politic.      If  men  were  mere  brute  agents,  their  lives  as 
producers  and  consumers  of  wealth  would,  no  doubt,  be 
subject  to  economic  law  as  undeviating  as  the  law  of 
nature ;  but  the  fact  that,  as  men,  they  are  in  all  their 
activity  moral   beings,  implies   that  even   the  economic 
world  must  come  under  the  higher  regulation  of  moral 
law.     The  State  alone  can  enforce  this  higher  regulation, 
and  the  advance  from  the  theory  of  absolutely  "  free  com- 
petition "  or  laissez  faire  to  that  of  industrial  co-operation 
and  organisation  is  bringing  us  to  the  recognition  of  the 
ethical  function  of  the  State  in  the  economic  sphere.     It 
is  for  the  State  to  substitute  for  the  "  mob-rule  "  of  un- 
ethical  economic   forces   the   steady  rational    control   of 
ethical  insight.     In  the  words  of  Professor  Adams,  in  the 
article  already  quoted :  "  Unless  some  way  be  discovered  by 
which  the  deep  ethical  purpose  of  society  can  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  industrial  questions,  our  magnificent  material 
civilisation  will  crumble  to  ashes  in  our  hands.  ...  A 
peace  born  of  justice  can  never  be  realised  by  balancing 
brute  force  against  brute  force.  .  .  .  The  ethical  sense 
of  society  must  be  brought  to  bear  in  settling  business 
affairs.  .  .  .  Above  the  interest  of  the  contending  parties 
stands  the  interest  of  the  public,  of  which  the  State  is 
the  natural  guardian,  and  one  way  to  realise  the  ethical 
purpose   of  society  in  business   affairs  is,  by  means   of 
legislation,  to  bring  the  ethical  sense  of  society  to  bear 
on   business   affairs."     This    means,   of    course,   "  State- 
interference  "  with  the  industrial  life  of  society ;  but  "  by 


such  interference  society  is  not  deprived  of  the  advantages 
of  competition,  but  the  plane  of  competition  is  adjusted 
to  the  moral. sense  of  the  community."^ 

This  maintenance  by  the  State  of  the  true  relation  of 
economic  to  ethical  good,  of  material  to  spiritual  well- 
being,  may  take  many  forms.  The  ultimate  measure  of 
well-being  having  been  found  in  the  perfection  of  the 
development  of  the  total  nature  of  the  individual,  his 
instrumental  value  as  a  producer  of  wealth  will  be  sub- 
ordinated to  his  essential  and  independent  worth  as  a 
moral  being;  regard  to  the  external  and  industrial  cri- 
terion will  be  checked  by  regard  to  the  internal  and 
ethical.  In  this  ultimate  regard,  all  men  will  be  seen  to 
be  equal ;  here,  in  the  ethical  sphere,  will  be  found  the 
true  democracy.  Class -interests  do  not  exist  here,  the 
capitalist  and  the  "  day-labourer  "  stand  here  on  the  same 
level,  and  the  true  State  will  regard  the  interests  of 
each  alike.  And  if,  even  here,  the  highest  well-being  of 
all  implies  a  certain  sacrifice  of  well-being  on  the  part  of 
the  individual,  the  State  will  see  that  such  sacrifice  does 
not  go  too  far,  that  no  citizen  loses  the  reality  of  citizen- 
ship and  sinks  to  the  status  of  a  slave  or  of  a  mere  in- 
strument in  the  industrial  machine,  but  that  for  each 
there  is  reserved  a  sufficient  sphere  of  complete  ethical 
living.  If  the  preservation  and  development  of  the  highest 
manhood  of  its  citizens  is  the  supreme  duty  of  the  State — 
its  ultimate  raison  d'itre—2i\\  obvious  case  of  this  duty 
is  the  securing  of  a  certain  amount  of  leisure  for  all  its 
citizens.     The  lowest  classes— those  which  are  technically 


1  *  International   Journal   of    Ethics,'    October   1891. 
Andrews's  *  Wealth  and  Moral  Law.' 


Cf.   President 


330 


THE   MORAL   LIFE. 


THE    SOCIAL   LIFE. 


331 


called  the  "  working  "  classes— need  this  leisure  far  more 
clamantly  than  the   middle  and  higher   classes.      Their 
"  work  "  is  a  far  harder  tyrant  than  the  work  of  the  latter, 
since  it  calls  forth  so  much  less  of  their  true  manhood ; 
they  are  "  dominated  "  far  more  largely  "  by  the  needs  of 
others  than  by  their  own."     Yet  they  too  have  needs  of 
their  own  not  less  real  and  not  less  urgent  than  their 
"  betters  " ;  they  too  have  a  manhood  to  develop,  a  moral 
inheritance  to  appropriate.     How  much  more  need  have 
they  of  leisure  to  be  with  themselves,  and  to  attend  to 
their  ''  proper  business  "  ?     Such  a  shortening  of  the  hours 
of  labour,  such  an  extension  of  the  area  of  the  free  indi- 
vidual life,  as  shall  secure  for  them  also  their  peculiar 
ethical  opportunity— this  surely  is  the  duty  of  the  State 
as  the  custodian  of  the  higher  justice. 

The  case  of  the  regulation  of  the  industrial  life  of  the 
community  offers  perhaps  the  best  example  of  the  via 
media  in  which  the  true  view  of  the  ethical  function  of 
the  State  is  to  be  found.  The  socialistic  extreme  would 
place  all  industrial  activities  in  the  hands  of  the  State, 
and  would  thus  endanger,  if  not  destroy,  the  proper 
life  of  the  individual  by  negating  the  principle  of 
free  competition.  The  individualistic  extreme,  on  the 
other  hand,  would  exclude  the  State  from  the  industrial 
sphere,  and  leave  economic  law  to  operate  unguided  and 
unchecked  by  any  ethical  considerations— a  course  equally 
fatal  to  the  moral  life  of  the  community.  The  true  view 
would  seem  to  be  that  while  the  industrial  sphere  is  to 
be  recognised  as  having  a  nature  of  its  own,  and  economic 
law  is  not  to  be  confused  with  ethical,  yet  the  ethical 
sphere  includes  the  industrial  as  it  includes  all  others, 


and  its  law  must  therefore  operate  through  the  law  of  the 
latter.  The  State,  accordingly,  as  the  all-inclusive  social 
unity,  must  guard  and  foster  the  ethical  life  of  its  citizens 
in  the  industrial  as  in  the  other  spheres  of  that  life. 

As  regards  the  distribution  of  material  wealth,  the  State 
has  also  a  function  assigned  to  it  by  its  ethical  constitu- 
tion. In  order  that  the  struggle  for  mere  "bread  and 
butter  "  may  not  consume  all  the  energies  of  the  masses  of 
its  citizens,  but  that  each  individual  in  these  "  masses  " 
may  have  scope  for  the  development  of  his  higher  ethical 
capacities,  for  his  proper  Self-development,  the  State  must 
see  that  the  "  furniture  of  fortune  "  is  not  so  unequally 
distributed  that,  in  any  individual,  the  activities  of  the 
moral  life  are  rendered  impossible,  or  so  narrowly  limited 
as  to  be  practically  frustrated.  For  though  it  may  be  true 
that  the  ethical  Good  is  in  its  essence  spiritual,  and  that 
"  a  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things 
which  he  possesseth,"  it  is  also  true  that  the  moral  life,  as 
we  know  it,  has  a  physical  basis,  and  that,  without  a  cer- 
tain measure  of  material  well-being,  the  "  good  will "  can 
find  but  little  expression  and  realisation  in  activity.  The 
potential  manhood  in  each  can  be  actualised  only  by  an 
act  of  individual  choice :  yet,  without  certain  conditions, 
such  actualisation  is  impossible.  It  is  for  the  State  so  to 
improve  the  conditions  or  "  environment "  of  those  against 
whom  "  fortune  " — it  may  be  in  the  shape  of  economic 
law — has  discriminated,  as  to  make  a  full  ethical  life  for 
them  also  possible. 

12.  In  such  ways  as  these  the  State  may  serve  the  ethi-  The  Per- 
cal  End.     The  question  may  finally  be  raised,  whether  the 


332 


THE   MOHAL   LIFE. 


THE   SOCIAL   LIFE. 


333 


of  the 

State. 


State  is  itself  a  permanent  ethical  institution,  or  destined, 
after  discharging  a  temporary  function,  to  give  place  to 
some  higher  form  of  social  organisation.    Is  the  final  form 
of  society  non-political  rather  than  political  ?     As  the  in- 
dividual emancipates  himself  from   political   control  by 
assuming  the  control  of  himself,  may  not  society  ultimately 
emancipate  itself  from  the  control  of  the  State  ?     And 
may   not  the   narrower  virtue    of    Patriotism,   or  devo- 
tion to  our  country,  give  place  to  the  larger  virtue  of  a 
universal  Philanthropy  and  Cosmopolitanism  ?     This  is,  of 
course,  a  question  on  which  we  can  only  speculate,  but 
our  practical  attitude  towards  the  State  will  be  to  some 
extent  affected  by  our  disposition  to  answer  it  in  the  one 
way  or  the  other.     It  seems  to  me  that  while  the  form  of 
the  State  may  continue  to  change,  the  State  itself  must 
remain  as  the  great  institution  of  the  ethical  life,  unless 
that  life  undergoes  a  fundamental  change.     Peace  may 
permanently  supplant  war,  and  harmony  antagonism,  in 
the  relation  of  State  to  State.     But  the  permanence  of  the 
State  itself  seems  consistent  with  the  highest  development 
of  the  ethical  life.    The  concentration  of  Patriotism  is  not 
necessarily  identical  with  narrowness  and  limitation.     "  It 
is  just  the  narrower  ties  that  divide  the  allegiance  which 
most  surely  foster  the  wider  affections."  ^     On  the  other 
hand,  Cosmopolitanism  has  proved  a  failure  when  sub- 
jected to  the  test  of  history.     The  Stoics  were  Cosmopoli- 
tans ;  so  also  were  the  Cynics  before  them.     But,  in  both 
cases,  Cosmopolitanism  proved  itself  a  negative  rather  than 
a  positive  principle  ;  it  resulted  in  individualism  and  social 
disintegration.     We  best  serve  humanity  when  we  serve 

^  MacCunn,  'Ethics  of  Citizenship,'  46. 


our  country  best,  as  our  best  service  to  our  country  is  our 
service  to  our  immediate  community,  and  our  best  service 
to  our  community  is  the  service  of  our  family  and  friends 
and  neighbours.  For  here,  once  more,  we  must  be  on 
our  guard  against  the  fallacy  of  the  abstract  universal. 
"  Humanity  "  is  only  a  vague  abstraction  until  we  particu- 
larise it  in  the  nation,  as  the  latter  itself  is  also  until  we 
still  further  particularise  and  individualise  it.  The  true 
universal  is  the  concrete  universal,  or  the  universal  in 
the  particular ;  and  we  can  well  believe  that  in  the  life 
of  domestic  piety,  of  true  neighbourliness,  and  of  good 
citizenship,  our  best  duty  to  humanity  is  abundantly  ful- 
filled. The  true  philanthropy  must  always  "begin  at 
home";  and,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  nationalism  is  as 
permanent  a  principle  of  the  ethical  life  as  individualism. 


NOTE. 

The  Theory  of  Punishment.^ 

A  GROWING  number  of  ethical  thinkers,  as  well  as  of  practical 
philanthropists,  maintain  the  necessity  of  a  radical  change  in  our 
view  of  punishment.  We  must  substitute,  they  contend,  for  the 
older  or  retributive  theory  the  "deterrent"  and  "reformative" 
theories.  The  new  "  science  of  criminology  "  is  founded  upon  the 
theory  that  crime  is  a  "pathological  phenomenon,"  a  "disease,"  a 
"form  of  insanity,"  an  "inherited  or  acquired  degeneracy." 2     It 


1  The  greater  part  of  this  note  appeared  as  a  "  discussion  "  in  the  '  Inter- 
national Journal  of  Ethics,'  Jan.  1892. 

2  Cf.  Donaldson,  "  Ethics  as  applied  to  Criminology  "  ('  Journal  of  Mental 

Science,'  Jan.  1891). 


334 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


follows  that  the  proper  treatment  of  the  criminal  is  that  which  seeks 
his  cure  rather  than  his  punishment.  Prisons  must  be  superseded 
by  hospitals,  asylums,  and  reformatories. 

An  advance  in  human  feeling,  as  well  as  in  intelligence,  is  to  be 
seen  in  this  movement,  both  in  its  theoretical  and  in  its  practical 
aspects  ;  an  advance  from  the  hard,  blind  desire  for  justice  and  the 
imrelenting  and  unreasonable  spirit  of  vindictiveness  to  a  gentler 
and  wiser  humanity.  And  society  is  now  so  securely  organised  that 
it  can  afford  to  be  not  only  just,  but  generous  as  well.  The  ques- 
tion, however,  is,  whether  the  newer  and  the  older  views  of  pun- 
ishment are  mutually  exclusive,  and,  if  not,  what  is  their  relation 
to  one  another ;  whether  the  substitution  of  the  deterrent  and  re- 
formative for  the  retributive  view  is  ethically  sound,  or  whether,  in 
our  recoil  from  the  older  view,  we  are  not  in  danger  of  going  to  the 
opposite  extreme  and  losing  the  element  of  truth  contained  in  the 
retributive  theory. 

We  must  acknowledge,  to  begin  with,  that  the  new  theory  can 
point  to  many  facts  for  its  basis.  The  general  principle  of  heredity 
is  operative  in  the  sphere  of  crime  and  vice  no  less  than  in  that 
of  virtue.  We  might  almost  say  that  the  criminal  "is  born,  not 
made,"'  or,  rather,  that  he  is  more  born  than  made.  Crime  seems  to 
be  almost  as  "  instinctive  "  in  some  natures  as  goodness  is  in  others. 
This  instinctive  tendency  to  evil,  developed  by  favourable  circum- 
stances or  "  environment,"  blooms  in  the  criminal  act  and  in  the  life 
of  crime.  There  is  a  criminal  class,  a  kind  of  caste,  which  propagates 
itself.  Crime  is  a  profession,  with  a  "code  of  honour"  and  an 
etiquette  of  its  own,  almost  a  vocation,  calling  for  a  special  apti- 
tude, moral  and  intellectual.  Have  we  not  here  a  great  "  pathologi- 
cal phenomenon,"  a  "  disease  "  to  be  cured,  not  punished  ? 

But  we  cannot  carry  out  the  "  pathological "  idea.  It  is  only  an 
analogy  or  metaphor  after  all,  and,  like  all  metaphors,  may  easily 
prove  misleading,  if  taken  as  a  literal  description  of  the  facts.  We 
distinguish  cases  of  "  criminal  insanity "  from  cases  of  "  crime " 
proper.  In  the  former,  the  man  is  treated  as  a  patient,  is  confined  or 
restrained,  is  "  managed  "  by  others.  But  he  is,  by  acknowledgment, 
so  much  the  less  a  man  because  he  may  be  treated  in  this  way  ;  he 
is  excused  for  that  which,  in  another,  would  be  punished  as  a  crime ; 
he  is  not  held  accountable  for  his  actions.  The  kleptomaniac,  for 
example,  is  not  punished,  but  excused.    Are  we  to  say  that  the  differ- 


THE    SOCIAL    LIFE. 


335 


ence  between  these  actions  and  crimes  proper  is  only  one  of  degree, 
and  that  the  criminal  is  always  a  pathological  or  abnormal  specimen 
of  humanity  ?  Do  all  criminals  "  border  close  on  insanity  "  ?  Even 
if  so,  we  must  recognise,  among  bad  as  well  as  among  good  men,  a 
border-line  between  the  sane  and  the  insane  ;  to  resolve  all  badness 
into  insanity  does  not  conduce  to  clear  thinking.  A  point  may  in- 
deed be  reached  in  the  life  of  crime,  as  in  the  life  of  vice  generally, 
after  which  a  man  ceases  to  "be  himself,"  and  may  therefore  be 
treated  as  a  "  thing  "  rather  than  as  a  "  person  "  ;  a  point  after  which, 
self-control  being  lost,  external  control  must  take  its  place.  But 
normal  crime,  if  it  has  anything  to  do  with  insanity,  is  rather  its 
cause  than  its  result. 

To  reduce  crime  to  a  "  pathological  phenomenon "  is  to  sap  the 
very  foundations  of  our  moral  judgments  ;  merit  as  well  as  demerit^ 
reward  as  well  as  punishment,  are  thereby  undermined.  Such  a 
view  may  be  scientific ;  it  is  not  ethical,  for  it  refuses  to  recognise 
the  commonest  moral  distinctions.  After  all  these  explanations 
have  been  given,  there  is  always  an  unexplained  residuum,  the  man 
himself.  A  man  knows  himself  from  the  inside,  as  it  were  ;  and  a 
man  does  not  excuse  himself  on  such  grounds.  Nor  would  the 
majority  of  men,  however  criminal,  be  willing  to  have  their  crimes 
put  down  to  the  account  of  "  insanity "  ;  most  men  would  resent 
such  a  rehabilitation  of  their  morals  at  the  expense  of  their  "  in- 
tellects." 

This  leads  us  to  remark  a  second  impossibility  in  the  theory — 
viz.,  that  the  ordinary  criminal,  whether  he  is  a  pathological  speci- 
men or  not,  will  not  submit  to  be  treated  as  a  "  patient "  or  a  case. 
For  he,  like  yourself,  is  a  person,  and  insists  on  being  respected  as 
such  ;  he  is  not  a  thing  to  be  passively  moulded  by  society  accord- 
inf'  to  its  ideas,  either  of  its  own  convenience  or  of  his  good.  Even 
the  criminal  man  will  not  give  up  his  self-control,  or  put  himself  in 
your  hands  and  let  you  cure  him.  His  will  is  his  own,  and  he  alone 
can  reform  himself.  He  will  not  become  the  patient  of  society,  to 
be  operated  upon  by  it.  The  appeal,  in  all  attempts  at  reformation, 
must  be  to  the  man  himself  ;  his  sanction  must  be  obtained,  and  his 
co-operation  secured,  before  reformation  can  begin.  He  is  not  an 
automaton,  to  be  regulated  from  without.  The  State  cannot  annex 
the  individual ;  be  he  criminal  or  saint,  his  life  is  his  own,  and  its 
springs  are  deep  within.     It  is  a  truism,  but  it  has  to  be  repeated 


334 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


follows  that  the  proper  treatment  of  the  criminal  is  that  which  seeks 
his  cure  rather  than  his  punishment.  Prisons  must  be  superseded 
by  hospitals,  asylums,  and  reformatories. 

An  advance  in  human  feeling,  as  well  as  in  intelligence,  is  to  be 
seen  in  this  movement,  both  in  its  theoretical  and  in  its  practical 
aspects  ;  an  advance  from  the  hard,  blind  desire  for  justice  and  the 
unrelenting  and  unreasonable  spirit  of  vindictiveness  to  a  gentler 
and  wiser  humanity.  And  society  is  now  so  securely  organised  that 
it  can  afford  to  be  not  only  just,  but  generous  as  well.  The  ques- 
tion, however,  is,  w^hether  the  newer  and  the  older  views  of  pun- 
ishment are  mutually  exclusive,  and,  if  not,  what  is  their  relation 
to  one  another  ;  whether  the  substitution  of  the  deterrent  and  re- 
formative for  the  retributive  view  is  ethically  sound,  or  whether,  in 
our  recoil  from  the  older  view,  we  are  not  in  danger  of  going  to  the 
opposite  extreme  and  losing  the  element  of  truth  contained  in  the 
retributive  theory. 

We  must  acknowledge,  to  begin  with,  that  the  new  theory  can 
point  to  many  facts  for  its  basis.  The  general  principle  of  heredity 
is  operative  in  the  sphere  of  crime  and  vice  no  less  than  in  that 
of  virtue.  We  might  almost  say  that  the  criminal  "  is  born,  not 
made,''  or,  rather,  that  he  is  more  born  than  made.  Crime  seems  to 
be  almost  as  "  instinctive  "  in  some  natures  as  goodness  is  in  others. 
This  instinctive  tendency  to  evil,  developed  by  favourable  circum- 
stances or  "  environment,"  blooms  in  the  criminal  act  and  in  the  life 
of  crime.  There  is  a  criminal  class,  a  kind  of  caste,  which  propagates 
itself.  Crime  is  a  profession,  with  a  "code  of  honour"  and  an 
etiquette  of  its  own,  almost  a  vocation,  calling  for  a  special  apti- 
tude, moral  and  intellectual.  Have  we  not  here  a  great  "  pathologi- 
cal phenomenon,"  a  "  disease  "  to  be  cured,  not  punished  ] 

But  we  cannot  carry  out  the  "  pathological "  idea.  It  is  only  an 
analogy  or  metaphor  after  all,  and,  like  all  metaphors,  may  easily 
prove  misleading,  if  taken  as  a  literal  description  of  the  facts.  "We 
distinguish  cases  of  "  criminal  insanity  "  from  cases  of  "  crime " 
proper.  In  the  former,  the  man  is  treated  as  a  patient,  is  confined  or 
restrained,  is  "  managed  "  by  others.  But  he  is,  by  acknowledgment, 
so  much  the  less  a  man  because  he  may  be  treated  in  this  way  ;  he 
is  excused  for  that  which,  in  another,  w^ould  be  punished  as  a  crime ; 
he  is  not  held  accountable  for  his  actions.  The  kleptomaniac,  for 
example,  is  not  punished,  but  excused.    Are  we  to  say  that  the  differ- 


THE    SOCIAL    LIFE. 


335 


ence  between  these  actions  and  crimes  proper  is  only  one  of  degree, 
and  that  the  criminal  is  always  a  pathological  or  abnormal  specimen 
of  humanity  ?  Do  all  criminals  "  border  close  on  insanity  "  ?  Even 
if  so,  we  must  recognise,  among  bad  as  well  as  among  good  men,  a 
border-line  between  the  sane  and  the  insane  ;  to  resolve  all  badness 
into  insanity  does  not  conduce  to  clear  thinking.  A  point  may  in- 
deed be  reached  in  the  life  of  crime,  as  in  the  life  of  vice  generally, 
after  which  a  man  ceases  to  "  be  himself,"  and  may  therefore  be 
treated  as  a  "  thing  "  rather  than  as  a  "  person  " ;  a  point  after  which, 
self-control  being  lost,  external  control  must  take  its  place.  But 
normal  crime,  if  it  has  anything  to  do  with  insanity,  is  rather  it& 
cause  than  its  result. 

To  reduce  crime  to  a  "  pathological  phenomenon "  is  to  sap  the 
very  foundations  of  our  moral  judgments  ;  merit  as  w^ell  as  demerit^ 
reward  as  well  as  punishment,  are  thereby  undermined.  Such  a 
view  may  be  scientific  ;  it  is  not  ethical,  for  it  refuses  to  recognise 
the  commonest  moral  distinctions.  After  all  these  explanations 
have  been  given,  there  is  alw^ays  an  unexplained  residuum,  the  man 
himself.  A  man  knows  himself  from  the  inside,  as  it  were  ;  and  a 
man  does  not  excuse  himself  on  such  grounds.  Nor  would  the 
majority  of  men,  however  criminal,  be  willing  to  have  their  crimes 
put  down  to  the  account  of  "  insanity "  ;  most  men  would  resent 
such  a  rehabilitation  of  their  morals  at  the  expense  of  their  ''  in- 
tellects." 

This  leads  us  to  remark  a  second  impossibility  in  the  theory— 
viz.,  that  the  ordinary  criminal,  whether  he  is  a  pathological  speci- 
men or  not,  will  not  submit  to  be  treated  as  a  "patient"  or  a  case. 
For  he,  like  yourself,  is  a  person,  and  insists  on  being  respected  as 
such  ;  he  is  not  a  thing  to  be  passively  moulded  by  society  accord- 
ing to  its  ideas,  either  of  its  own  convenience  or  of  his  good.  Even 
the  criminal  man  w  ill  not  give  up  his  self-control,  or  put  himself  in 
your  hands  and  let  you  cure  him.  His  will  is  his  own,  and  he  alone 
can  reform  himself.  He  will  not  become  the  patient  of  society,  to 
be  operated  upon  by  it.  The  appeal,  in  all  attempts  at  reformation, 
must  be  to  the  man  himself  ;  his  sanction  must  be  obtained,  and  his 
co-operation  secured,  before  reformation  can  begin.  He  is  not  an 
automaton,  to  be  regulated  from  without.  The  State  cannot  annex 
the  individual ;  be  he  criminal  or  saint,  his  life  is  his  own,  and  its 
springs  are  deep  within.     It  is  a  truism,  but  it  has  to  be  repeated 


336 


THE   MORAL   LIFE. 


THE    SOCIAL    LIFE. 


337 


in  the  present  connection,  that  all  moral  control  is  ultimately  self- 
control. 

In  virtue  of  his  manhood  or  personality,  then,  the  criminal  must 
be  convinced  of  the  righteousness  of  the  punishment.    Possessing,  as 
he  does,  the  universal  human  right  of  private  judgment,  the  right  to 
question  and  criticise  according  to  his  own  inner  light,  he  must  be 
made  to  see  that  the  act  of  society  is  a  punishment,  and  to  accept  it 
as  such  ;  he  must  see  the  righteousness  of  the  punishment  before  it 
can  work  out  in  him  its  peaceable /rza^s  of  righteousness.     Here,  in 
the  force  of  this  inner  appeal,  in  such  an  awakening  of  the  man's 
slumbering  conscience,  lies  the  ethical  value  of  punishment.     With- 
out this  element,  you  have  only  a  superficial  view  of  it  as  an  ex- 
ternal force  operating  upon  the  man.    Such  a  violent  procedure  may 
be  necessary,  especially  in  the  earlier  measures  of  society  for  its  own 
protection.    But  it  is  not  to  be  taken  as  the  type  of  penal  procedure, 
nor  is  it  effective  beyond  a  very  narrow  range.     A  man  may  be  re- 
strained in  this  way  from  a  particular  act  of  crime  on  a  particular 
occasion  ;  but  the  criminal  nature  in  him  is  not  touched,  the  crim- 
inal instincts  are  not  extirpated,— they  will  bloom  again  in  some 
other  deed  of  crime.     The  deepest  warrant  for  the  effectiveness  of 
punishment  as  a  deterrent  and  reformative  agent  is  found  in  its 
ethical  basis  as  an  act  of  retribution.     True  reformation  comes  only 
with  the  acceptance  of  the  punishment,  by  mind  and  heart,  as  the 
inevitable  fruit  of  the  act.     For  punishment  thus  becomes  a  kind  of 
revelation  to  the  man  of  the  true  significance  of  his  character  and 
life.     A  man  may  thus  be  shocked  into  a  better  life.     For  *' acci- 
dental "  calamity,  or  for  suffering  which  he  has  not  brought  upon 
himself,  a  man  does  not  condemn  himself.     Such  self-condemnation 
comes  only  with  insight  into  the  retributive  nature  of  the  calamity. 
It  is  just  this  element  of  retribution  that  converts  "  calamity  "  or 
*' misfortune"  into  "punishment."    The  judgment  of  society  upon 
the  man  must  become  the  judgment  of  the  man  upon  himself,  if 
it  is  to  be  effective  as  an  agent  in  his  reformation.     This  private 
re-enactment  of  the  social  judgment  comes  with  the  perception  of 
retribution  or  desert. 

Punishment  is,  in  its  essence,  a  rectification  of  the  moral  order  of 
which  crime  is  the  notorious  breach.  Yet  it  is  not  a  mere  barren 
vindication  of  that  order;  it  has  an  "effect  on  character,"  and 
moulds  that  to  order.    Christianity  has  so  brought  home  to  us  this 


brighter  side  of  punishment,  this  beneficent  possibility  in  all  suffer- 
ing, that  it  seems  artificial  to  separate  the  retributive  from  the 
reformative  purpose  of  punishment.  The  question  is  not  "  whether, 
apart  from  its  effects,  there  would  be  any  moral  propriety  in  the 
mere  infliction  of  pain  for  pain's  sake."  ^  Why  separate  the  act  from 
its  "effects"  in  this  way?  In  reality  they  are  inseparable.  The 
punishment  need  not  be  "  for  the  sake  of  punishment,  and  for  no 
other  reason  ; "  it  need  not  be  "  modified  for  utilitarian  reasons." 
The  total  conception  of  punishment  may  contain  various  elements 
indissolubly  united.  The  question  is,  Which  is  the  fundamental ; 
out  of  which  do  the  others  grow  ?  Nor  do  I  see  that  such  a  theory 
of  punishment  is  open  to  the  charge  of  "  syncretism."  I  should 
rather  call  it  synthetic  and  concrete,  as  taking  account  of  all  the 
elements  and  exhibiting  their  correlation.  Might  we  not  sum  up 
these  elements  in  the  word  "  discipline,"  meaning  thereby  that  the 
end  of  punishment  is  to  bring  home  to  a  man  such  a  sense  of  guilt 
as  shall  work  in  him  a  deep  repentance  for  the  evil  past,  and  a  new 
obedience  for  the  time  to  come  ? 

Whether,  or  how  far,  such  a  conception  of  punishment  can  be  real- 
ised by  the  State,  is  another  question.  Its  realisation  would  mean 
that  the  State  should  stand  to  the  individual,  in  some  measure,  in  loco 
parentis^ — that  the  State  is  a  great  moral  educator.  Such  a  "  pater- 
nal "  function  is,  at  any  rate,  no  less  practicable  for  the  State  than 
the  curative  function  assigned  to  it  by  the  theory  we  have  been  con- 
sidering ;  for  the  latter  function  to  be  effectively  discharged  would 
imply  an  exhaustive  "  diagnosis  "  of  each  criminal  "  case.'*  And  we 
have  seen  that  the  State  has  a  moral  end,  that  its  function  is  not 
the  merely  negative  or  "police"  one  of  protection  of  individual 
from  individual,  but  the  moral  education  and  development  of  the 
individual  himself.  It  is,  indeed,  mainly  to  the  external  and  in- 
adequate modern  conception  of  the  State  that  we  must  trace  the 
external  and,  I  have  sought  to  show,  inadequate  view  of  punishment 
as  primarily  deterrent,  and  (even  when  reformative)  undertaken  for 
the  protection  of  society  from  the  individual  rather  than  in  the 
interests  of  the  individual  himself.  Civil  punishment  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  undertaken  in  the  interests  of  the  moral  individual ;  it  is  one 
of  the  arrangements  of  the  State,  which  is  the  individual's  moral 


^  H.  Rashdall,  'International  Journal  of  Ethics,'  October  1891. 

Y 


338 


THE    MORAL    LIFE. 


"sphere."  But  even  if  we  refuse  to  go  beyond  the  protective  or 
deterrent  point  of  view,  we  have  seen  that  this  standpoint  coincides 
with  both  the  reformative  and  the  retributive.  In  proceeding  from 
the  one  to  the  other  of  these  views  of  punishment  we  are  only  pro- 
ceeding from  an  external  to  an  internal  view  of  the  same  thing.  To 
be  permanently  deterrent,  punishment  must  be  educative  or  re- 
formative as  well ;  there  must  be  an  inner  as  well  as  an  outer 
reformation.  To  the  social  prevention  must  be  added  self-prevention, 
and  this  conies  only  with  inner  reformation.  Such  a  reformation, 
again,  implies  the  acceptance,  by  the  criminal,  of  the  punishment  as 
just,  his  recognition  in  it  of  the  ethical  completion  of  his  own  act ; 
and  this  is  the  element  of  retribution  or  desert,  which  is  thus  seen  to 
be  the  basis  of  the  other  elements  in  punishment. 


PART   III. 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS    OF    MORALITY 


METAPHYSICAL  IMPLICATIONS  OF  MOEALITY. 


We  have  sought  to  base  our  ethical  theory  upon  psy-  Tiie  three 

.  problems 

choloiiY;  since,  as  philosophy  always  rests  upon  science,  of  the 

„  ,  .   1       ^1       T_      •     Metaphy- 

the  scientific  account  of  man  s  nature  must  be  the  basis  sic  of  Eth- 
of  the  ethical  theory  of  his  life.  But  when  we  try  to  ,^,,,[^^1  re- 
think out  the  life  of  man,  and  to  discover  its  total  and  ^^^''''''• 
perfect  meaning,  we  are  inevitably  thrown  back  upon  the 
ultimate  metaphysical  questions  which,  here  as  elsewhere, 
lurk  behind  the  questions  of  science,  and  to  which  there- 
fore science,  as  such,  provides  no  answer.  Indeed, 
it  must  have  been  felt  that  the  most  important  posi- 
tions taken  in  the  course  of  the  preceding  discussion — 
whether  critical  or  constructive — rest  upon  some  deeper 
basis  than  that  of  the  introductory  psychological  analysis. 
It  seemed  well,  however,  to  reserve  the  direct  investiga- 
tion of  this  metaphysical  basis  till  the  end.  For  while 
in  strict  logical  order  the  Metaphysic  of  Ethics  ought 
to  precede  Ethics  itself,  yet  the  order  "  for  us  "  is  rather 
the  converse ;  we  proceed  from  the  circumference  to  the 
centre  of  knowledge,  rather  than  from  the  centre  to  the 
circumference.  Now,  however,  we  must  try  to  discover 
the  metaphysical  centre  of  our  circle  of  ethical  theory; 


342 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


343 


only  if  we  can  describe  the  circle  from  that  centre,  shall 
we  have  verified  the  philosophical  character  of  the  ethical 
theory  itself. 

The  central  or  metaphysical  principle  of  morality— the 
ultimate  presupposition  of  ethical  theory— assumes  differ- 
ent aspects  when  we  examine  it  from  different  standpoints 
or  in  different  moral  lights.      The  single  problem  pre- 
sents itself  for  solution  in  three  different  forms,  as  Kant 
says  the  metaphysical  problem  necessarily  does.     When 
we  try  to  discover  the  ultimate  warrant  for  our  ethical 
interpretation  of  human  life,  we  find  (1)  that  it  must  be 
a  certain  interpretation  of  man's  nature,— of  his  essential 
being,  as   either  a  product  of   nature,   sharing   nature's 
life,  and  without  an  end  essentially  different  from  that 
of  the  animal  and  the  thing,  or  a  being  apart  from  nature, 
with  a  being  and  a  life  in  which  nature  cannot  share! 
standing  in  a  different  relation  to  the  course  of  things! 
and  possessed  of  a  unique  power  to  order  his  own  life  and 
to  attain  his  own  end,  a  unique  capacity  of  failure  or 
success  in  the  attainment  of  his  life's  possibility.      In 
other  words,  the  world-old  problem  of  human  Freedom, 
and  the  comparative  merits  of  the  two  rival  solutions— 
Libertarianism  and  Determinism-inevitably  present  them- 
selves and  claim  our  consideration.     (2)  We  cannot  help 
asking  the  question  whether  Nature,  the  physical  cosmos,  is 
a  sufficient  sphere  and  environment  for  man  as  a  moral  be- 
ing, or  whether  it  is  necessary  to  postulate  a  higher  and 
super-mtmal  sphere,  a  moral  order  other  than  the  physical 
order,  a  moral  Being  or  God  other  than  Nature.     This 
IS  only  another  aspect  of  the  first  question.     For  if,  on 
one  hand,  we  can  naturalise  the  moral  man,  or  resolve 


man  (and  with  him  his  morality)  into  Nature,  then  there 
will  be  no  call  for  an  order  higher  than  the  order  of 
Nature,  or  for.  a  God  other  than  Nature  itself.     If,  on  the 
other   hand,  such   a   naturalistic  theory  of  man  is   im- 
possible, we  shall  be  forced  to  postulate  a  universal  ethical 
Principle  or  Being,  answering  to  the  ethical  being  of  man. 
Even  then  the  relation  of  man  to  this  universal  Principle 
or  Being  will  have  to  be  determined, — a  problem  which 
will  be  found  to  be  only  the  problem  of  Freedom  in  another 
aspect.     (3)  Last  of  all,  there  is  the  problem  of  the  destiny 
of  man  as  a  moral  being,  and  this  again  is  only  a  new 
form  of  the  old  problem.     If,  on  the  one  hand,  man  is  a 
merely  natural  being,  his  destiny  must  be  that  of  Nature ; 
only  a  unique  being  with  a  unique  life  can  claim  a  unique 
destiny.     If,  on   the   other  hand,  it  is  found  impossible 
to  resolve  man  into  Nature,  and  necessary  to  postulate  for 
him  a  being  and  a  life  different  in  kind  from  Nature's, 
and  an  ethical  universe  as  the  sphere  of  that  life,  it  would 
seem  to  be  necessary  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  being  and 
the  completion  (instead  of  negation)  of  his  task,  that  he 
should  have  an  immortal  destiny.     Here,  again,  however, 
the  solution  of  the  problem  would  depend  upon  our  inter- 
pretation not  only  of  man's  relation  to  Nature,  but  also  of 
his  relation  to  God ;  and  both  these  interpretations  throw 
us  back  once  more  upon  the  question  of  the  essential  and 
ultimate  nature  of  man  himself. 

It  is  maintained  by  some,  as  we  have  seen,i  that  such 
a  Metaphysic  of  Ethics  is  both  superfluous  and  futile — 
that  a  Science  of  Ethics  is  all  that  is  needful  and  pos- 
sible.     Such  a  position  is  characteristic  of  the  "  agnostic  '* 

^  Introduction,  21  ff. 


344 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


345 


or  «  positive  "  temper  of  contemporary  thought ;  it  is  also 
of  the  essence  of  an  empirical  Evolutionism  to  disallow 
any  non-naturalistic,  or  specifically  spiritual,  principle  of 
explanation.     Transcendental  explanations  are  at  a  dis- 
count,  and  men  are  in  love  with  empirical  or  ''  scientific  " 
views.     But  the  establishment  of  the  superior  claims  of 
such  an  explanation  is  itself  a  metaphysical  undertaking, 
and  demands,  for  its  successful  accomplishment,  a  con^- 
parison  with  the  rival  "  transcendental "  or  "  metaphysi- 
cal "  view.     We  must,  in  any  case,  test  the  metaphysical 
possibilities  of  the  case,  before  we  have  any  right  to  pro- 
nounce against  Metaphysics,  here  or  elsewhere.     I  need 
hardly  add  that  I  do  not  attempt,  in  what  follows,  to  give 
an  exhaustive  answer  to  the  metaphysical  questions,'but 
merely  to  indicate  the  kind  of  answer  which,  in  an  ethical 
reference,  these  questions  seem  to  me  to  demand. 


CHAPTEK    I. 


THE  PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM. 


1.  After  what  has  been  said  in  general  about  the  neces-  statement 
sity  of  raising  the  metaphysical  question  in  an  ethical  probienu 
reference,  we  need  not  further  attempt  to  vindicate  the 
propriety  of  discussing  the  problem  of  Freedom.  That 
problem  is,  like  the  other  metaphysical  problems,  very 
old,  but  not  therefore,  as  some  would  say,  antiquated.  It 
is  not  "  a  problem  which  arose  under  certain  conditions, 
and  has  disappeared  with  the  disappearance  of  these  con- 
ditions, a  problem  which  exists  only  for  a  theological  or 
scholastic  philosophy."  ^  The  conditions  of  the  problem 
are  always  with  us,  and  the  problem,  therefore,  can  never 
become  obsolete.  It  is  one  of  the  central  questions  of 
metaphysics— or  rather,  it  is  one  aspect  of  the  central 
metaphysical  question ;  and  though  its  form  may  change, 
the  question  itself  remains,  to  be  dealt  with  by  each  suc- 
ceeding age  in  its  own  way. 

For  us,  as  for  Kant,  the  question  of  freedom  takes  the 
form  of  a  deep-seated  antithesis  between  the  interests  of 
the   scientific  or   intellectual   consciousness   on   the  one 

1  Paulsen,  '  Ethik,' i.  351. 


346 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


hand,  and  the  moral  and  religious  convictions  of  mankind 
on  the  other. 

From  the  scientific  or  theoretical  point  of  view,  man 
must  regard  himself  as  part  of  a  totality  of  things,  animals, 
and  persons.     In  the  eyes  of  science,  "  human  nature  "  is' 
a  part  of  the  universal  "  nature  of  things  " ;  man's  life  is 
a  part  of  the  wider  life  of  the  iiniverse  itself.     The  uni- 
versal  order  can  admit  of  no  real  exceptions ;  what  seems 
exceptional  must  cease  to  be  so  in  the  light  of  advancing 
knowledge.     This,  its  fundamental  postulate,  science  is 
constantly  verifying.    Accordingly,  when  science-psycho- 
logical and  physiological,  as  well  as  physical— attacks  the 
problem  of  human  life,  it  immediately  proceeds  to  break 
down  man's  imagined  independence  of  nature,  and  seeks 
to   demonstrate   his   entire   dependence.      The   scientific 
doctrine  now  prefers,  indeed,  to  call  itself  by  the  "  fairer 
name  "  of  Determinism ;  but  if  it  has  the  courage  of  its 
convictions,  it  will  acknowledge  the  older  and  truer  name 
of  Necessity.    For  though  the  forces  which  bind  man  are 
primarily  the  inner  forces  of  motive  and  disposition  and 
established  character,  yet  between  these  inner  forces  and 
the  outer  forces  of  Nature  there  can  be  no  real  break. 
The  force,  outer  and  inner,  is  ultimately  one ;  "  human 
nature  "  is  part  of  the  "  nature  of  things."     The  original 
source  of  man's  activity  lies  therefore  without  rather  dian 
within  himself ;  for  the  outer  force  is  the  larger  and  the 
stronger,  and  includes  the  inner.     I  get  my  "  nature  "  by 
heredity  from  "  Nature  "  herself,  and,  once  got,  it  is  further 
formed  by  force  of  circumstances  and  education.     All  that 
I  do  is  to  react— as  any  animal  or  plant  or  even  stone  does 
also  in  its  measure— on  the  influences  which  act  upon  me. 


.-.'jj^. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   FREEDOM. 


O 


47 


Such  action  and  reaction,  together,  yield  the  whole  series 
of  occurrences  which  constitute  my  life.      I,  therefore, 
am  not  free  (as  determinists  are  apt  to  insist  that  I  am, 
though  my  will  is  determined) ;  "  motives  "  are,  after  all, 
external  forces  operating  upon  my  "  nature,"  which  re- 
sponds to  them,  and  over  neither  "  motive  "  nor  "  nature  " 
have  I  any  control.     I  am  constrained  by  the  necessity 
of  Nature — its  law  is  mine ;  and  thus  Determinism  really 
means  Constraint.     The  necessity  that  entwines  my  life 
is  conceived,  it  is  true,  rather  as  an  inner  than  as  an 
outer  necessity;    but  the  outer  and  the  inner  necessity 
are  seen,  in  their  ultimate  analysis,  to  be  one  and  the 
same.     The  necessity  that  governs  our  life  is  "  a  magic 
web  woven  through  and  through  us,  like  that  magnetic 
system  of  which  modern  science  speaks,  penetrating  us 
with   a   network   subtler   than  our  subtlest   nerves,  yet 
bearing  in  it  the  central  forces  of  the  world."  ^ 

The  distinction  between  the  new  Determinism  and  the 
old  Necessitarianism  has  been  finally  invalidated,  so  far 
as  science  is  concerned,  by  the  scientific  conception  of 
Evolution.  Science  now  insists  upon  regarding  man,  like 
all  else,  as  an  evolved  product ;  and  the  evolution  must 
ultimately  be  regarded  as,  in  its  very  nature,  one  and  con- 
tinuous. The  scientific  or  modern  fashion  of  speaking  of 
a  man's  life  as  the  result  of  certain  "  forces,"  into  which 
it  is  the  business  of  the  biographer  and  historian  to 
resolve  him,  is  no  mere  fashion  of  speech.  In  literal 
truth,  the  individual  is,  in  the  view  of  science,  the  child 
of  his  age  and  circumstances,  and  impotent  as  a  child  in 
their  hands.      The  scientific  explanation  of  human  life 

^  Mr  Pater,  iu  *  The  Renaissance. ' 


348 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIOXS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    FREEDOM. 


349 


and  character  is  the  exhibition  of  them  as  taking  their 
place  among  the  other  products  of  cosmical  evolution. 
In  our  day,  accordingly,  it  is  no  longer  scientific  to 
recognise  such  a  break  as  Mill,  following  Edwards'  hint, 
insisted  upon,  between  outward  "  constraint "  and  inward 
"  determination."  All  the  interests  of  the  scientific  ambi- 
tion are  bound  up  with  the  denial  of  Freedom  in  any  and 
every  sense  of  the  word ;  its  admission  means  embarrass- 
ment to  the  scientific  consciousness,  and  the  surrender  of 
the  claim  of  science  to  finality  in  its  view  of  human  life. 

With  the  assertion  of  Freedom,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
as  undeniably  bound  up  all  the  interests  of  the  moral  and 
religious  consciousness;   Kant's  saying   still  holds,  that 
freedom  is  the  postulate  of  morality.     The  moral  con- 
sciousness dissolves  at  the  touch  of  such  scientific  "  ex- 
planation "  as  I  have  just  referred  to.     The  determinist 
may  try  to  prop  it  up,  and  to  construct  a  pseudo-morality 
on  the  basis  of  necessity ;  but  the  attempt  is  doomed  to 
failure.      The  living  throbbing  experience  of  the  moral 
man,— remorse  and  retribution,  approbation  and  reward, 
all  the  grief  and  humiliation  of  his  life,  all  its  joy  and  ex- 
altation, imply  a  deep  and  ineradicable  conviction  that  his 
destiny,  if  partly  shaped  for  him  by  a  Power  beyond  him- 
self, is  yet,  in  its  grand  outline,  in  his  own  hands,  to  make 
it  or  to  mar  it,  as  he  will.     As  man  cannot,  without  ceas- 
ing to  be  man,  escape  the  imperative  of  duty,  so  he  cannot 
surrender  his  freedom  and  become  a  child  of  nature.     All 
the  passion  of  his  moral  experience  gathers  itself  up  in 
the  conviction  of  his  infinite  and  eternal  superiority  to 
Nature  :  she  "  cannot  do  otherwise,"  he  can.     Engulfed  in 
the  necessity  of  Nature,  he  could  still  conceive  himself  as 


living  the  life  of  Nature,  or  a  merely  animal  life,  but  no 
longer  as  living  the  proper  and  characteristic  life  of  man. 
That  is  a  life  xooted  in  the  conviction  of  its  freedom ;  for 
it  is  not  a  life,  like  Nature's,  "  according  to  law,"  but  a  life 
"  according  to  the  representation  of  law,"  or  in  free  obedi- 
ence to  a  consciously  conceived  ideal. 

The  grand  characteristic  of  the  moral  life  of  man,  which 
forbids  its  resolution  into  the  life  either  of  Nature  or  of 
God,  is  Eesponsibility  or  Obligation.  This  is  more  than 
expectation  of  "  punishment,"  to  which  Mill  would  reduce 
it.  It  is  rather  punishability,  desert  of  punishment  or  of 
reward.  The  element  of  "  retribution  "  or  desert,  instead 
of  being  accidental,  is  essential  to  the  conception.  In  the 
common  human  experience  of  remorse  there  is  implied  the 
conviction  that  different  possibilities  of  action  were  open, 
and  therefore  that  the  agent  is  accountable  for  what  he 
did— accountable  not  necessarily  inforo  ca;^erno,  human  or 
divine,  but  primarily  and  inevitably  to  himself,  to^  the 
inner  tribunal  of  his  own  nature  in  its  varied  possibilities. 
And  retribution  comes,  if  not  from  without,  yet  with  sure 
and  certain  foot  from  within.  Our  moral  nature,  in  its 
high  possibilities,  is  inexorable  in  its  demands  and  relent- 
less in  its  penalties  for  failure  to  satisfy  them.  To  say 
that  the  actual  and  the  possible  in  human  life  are,  in  the 
last  analysis,  identical,  to  resolve  the  "  ought  to  be  "  into 
the  "  is,"  would  be  to  falsify  the  healthy  moral  conscious- 
ness of  mankind. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  admission  of  the  full  claim  of 
that  consciousness  may  mean  the  surrender  of  metaphysi- 
cal completeness  in  our  scheme  of  the  universe.  For  it 
means  the  recognition  of  a  spiritual  "  force,"  different  in 


'ii 


350 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   FREEDOM. 


351 


The 

"moral 

method." 


kind  from  the  natural  or  mechanical,  and  therefore  the 
surrender  of  a  materialistic  Monism  or  a  "  scientific  "  syn- 
thesis. It  means  also  the  recognition  of  a  plurality  of 
spiritual  "  forces,"  and  therefore  the  surrender  of  a  spiritual 
or  idealistic  Monism  which  would  exclude  such  plurality. 
It  may  even  mean,  as  Professor  James  insists  that  it  does, 
the  entire  abandonment  of  the  monistic  point  of  view,  or 
of  the  conception  of  a  "  block-universe."  The  admission 
of  free  personality  may  cleave  the  universe  asunder,  and 
leave  us  with  a  seemingly  helpless  "  pluralism  "  in  place 
of  the  various  "  monisms  "  of  metaphysical  theory.  Such 
an  admission  means  further  the  recognition  of  evil,  real 
and  positive,  alongside  of  good  in  the  universe.  It  may 
therefore  mean  the  surrender  of  optimism,  philosophical 
and  religious,  or  at  any  rate  force  us  to  pass  to  it  through 
the  "strait  gate"  of  pessimism.  All  this  darkness  and 
difficulty  may  result  to  metaphysics  from  the  recognition 
and  candid  concession  of  the  demands  of  the  moral  con- 
sciousness. Nor  will  this  seem  strange  when  we  remember 
that  the  moral  problem  of  Freedom  is  just  the  problem  of 
Personality  itself,  which  cannot  but  prove  a  stone  of  stum- 
bling to  every  metaphysical  system — 

"  Dark  is  the  world  to  thee  ;  thyself  art  the  reason  why ; 
For  is  He  not  all  but  thou,  that  hast  power  to  feel  '  I  am  I '  ? " 

2.  Eecognising  these  difficulties,  and  regarding  them 
as  insuperable,  we  may  still  accept  freedom  as  the  ethical 
postulate,  as  the  hypothesis,  itself  inexplicable,  upon 
which  alone  morality  becomes  intelligible.  This  is  the 
"  moral  method,"  which  some  living  thinkers  share  with 
Kant.     The  method  or  standpoint  has  received  a  brilliant 


exposition  and  defence  from  Professor  William  James,  in 
a  lecture  on  "The  Dilemma  of  Determinism." ^     "I  for 
one,"  says  the  latter  writer,  "  feel  as  free  to  try  the  con- 
ception of  moral  as  of  mechanical  or  of  logical  reality. 
...  If  a  certain  formula  for  expressing  the  nature  of  the 
world  violates  my  moral  demand,  I  shall  feel  as  free  to 
throw  it  overboard,  or  at  least  to  doubt  it,  as  if  it  dis- 
appointed my  demand  for   uniformity   of   sequence,  for 
example."    Insisting  upon  the  "  integrity  of  our  moral " 
as  well  as  of  our  intellectual  judgments,  and  especially 
upon  that  of  the  "judgment  of   regret,"  and  upon  the 
equal  legitimacy  of  the  "  postulate  of  moral "  with  that  of 
"physicll   coherence,"  Professor  James   thus   states   his 
conclusion  :  "  While   I  freely  admit  that  the   pluralism 
and  restlessness  [of  a  universe  with  freedom  in  it]  are 
repugnant  and  irrational  in  a  certain  way,  I  find  that  the 
alternative  to  them  is  irrational  in  a  deeper  way.    The  in- 
determinism  offends  only  the  native  absolutism  of  my  in- 
tellect—an absolutism  which,  after  all,  perhaps  deserves  to 
be  snubbed  and  kept  in  check.    But  the  determinism  .  .^ . 
violates  my  sense  of  moral  reality  through  and  through." 

Now,  such  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  freedom  is,  to 
say  the'very  least,  a  plausible  one ;  but  let  us  note  exactly 
what  it  means.  It  recognises  and  gives  a  new  emphasis 
to  the  Kantian  antithesis  between  the  intellectual  or 
scientific  consciousness  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  moral 
and  religious  on  the  other ;  and  the  solution  offered  con- 
sists in  an  assertion  of  the  rights  of  the  latter  along  with, 
and  even  in  precedence  of,  those  of  the  former.  The 
decision  in  favour  of  Freedom  is  thus  a  kind  of  "  moral 

1  Published  in  the  'Unitarian  Review,'  September  1884  (Boston,  U.S.A.) 


352 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


wager,"  as  M.  Eenouvier  has  well  called  it ;  the  odds  seem 
to  be  on  the  side  of  morality,  and  therefore  the  odds  are 
taken.  And  probably  the  question  is  generally  answered 
on  some  such  grounds,  though  not  so  explicitly  formulated. 
The  philosopher  is  the  man,  after  all;  and  the  stress  is 
laid  on  the  one  side  of  the  question  or  the  other,  according 
to  the  temper  of  the  individual.  One  man  feels  more 
keenly  the  disappointment  of  his  moral  expectation, 
another  feels  more  keenly  the  disappointment  of  his  in- 
tellectual or  scientific  ambition.  For  the  ethical  and  the 
scientific  temper  are  not  generally  found  in  equal  propor- 
tions in  the  same  man.  As  men  are  born  Platonists  or 
Aristotelians,  so  are  they  born  moralists  or  intellectualists, 
men  of  practice  or  men  of  theory ;  and  this  original  bent 
of  nature  will  generally  determine  a  man's  attitude  to 
such  an  ultimate  question.  While  the  "  intellectualists  " 
will,  with  Spinoza,  ruthlessly  sacrifice  freedom  to  com- 
pleteness and  finality  of  speculative  view,  the  "  moralists  " 
will  be  content,  with  Kant  and  Lotze,  to  "  recognise  this 
theoretically  indemonstrable  freedom  as  'a  postulate  of 
the  practical  reason.'"  The  latter  position,  if  it  con- 
fessedly falls  short  of  knowledge,  is  at  any  rate  entitled  to 
the  name  which  it  claims  for  itself,  that  of  a  "rational 
faith";  it  is  a  faith  grounded  in  the  moral  or  practical 
reason.  Since  man  must  livc^  whether  he  can  ever  know 
hovj  he  lives  or  not,  freedom  may  well  be  accepted  as  the 
postulate  or  axiom  of  human  life.  If  moral  experience 
implies  freedom,  or  even  the  idea  of  freedom,  as  its  condi- 
tion ;  if  man  is  so  constituted  that  he  can  act  only  under 
the  idea  of  freedom,  or  as  if  he  were  free,  then  the  onus 
jprdbandi  surely  lies  with  the  determinist.     It  is  for  him 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    FREEDOM. 


353 


to  make  good  his  libel  upon  human  nature,  that  it  is  the 
constant  dupe  of  such  deep  delusion;  as  it  is  for  the 
agnostic  to  make  good  that  other  libel  of  the  mere  rela- 
tivity of  human  knowledge. 

But,  while  fully  recognising  the  merits  of  this  "  moral 
method,"  and,  above  all,  the  intellectual  candour  which  it 
expresses,  must  we  not  seek  to  establish  freedom  upon 
some  higher  and   yet  more  stable  ground?      Kant's  an- 
tithesis still  remains.     Can  it  not  be  overcome  ?     Is  it  not 
possible  to  exhibit  the  unity  of  the  intellectual  and  moral 
judgments,  and  thus  to  eliminate  the  subjective  element 
which  seems  to  cling  to  the  solution  just  referred  to? 
We,  and  our  life,  moral  as  well  as  intellectual  and  phys- 
ical, are  after  all  part  of  one  reality ;  moral  reality  and 
physical  reality  are  elements  of  a  real  universe.      The 
moral  consciousness  is  the  consciousness  or  expression — 
one  among  other  expressions,  conscious  and  unconscious — 
of  the  universe  itself.^     It  is  objective  as  well  as  subjec- 
tive ;  you  cannot  detach  the  moral  subject  and  his  con- 
sciousness from  the  universe  in  which  he  finds  his  place 
and  life.     The  conception  of  Duty  or  Oughtness,  with  its 
implicate  of  Freedom,  is  not  an  artificial  product,  a  foreign 
importation  into  the  universe ;  it  is  a  genuine  and  authen- 
tic exponent  of  the  universe  itself,  and  therefore  we  must 
interpret  the  universe  in  its  light.     Whatever  the  difficul- 
ties which  the   moral   consciousness   may   raise  for   the 
metaphysical  intellect,  it  is  of  right,  and  not  of  favour  or 
of  choice,  that  its  utterance  is  heard.     It,  too,  is  the  voice 
of  reason— the  voice  of  the  universal  Eeality  or  "  nature 
of  things";  and  the  determinism  that  would  choke  its 

1  Cf.  Fouill^e,  'L'Avenirde  la  M^aphysique,'  262  ff. 


354 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    FREEDOM. 


355 


(( 


re- 


The 

conciling 

project." 


utterance  or  treat  it  as  illusion  and  "pious  fraud,"  is  a 
libel  not  only  upon  human  nature,  but  upon  the  universe 
itself.  The  breach  between  our  intellectual  and  our  moral 
judgments  can  be  only  apparent,  not  real  or  permanent. 
Must  we  not  then  continue  the  effort  to  achieve  their  re- 
conciliation, and  to  understand  Freedom  in  its  relation  to 
so-called  Necessity  ?  Let  us  revise  both  conceptions  once 
more,  to  discover  whether  such  a  reconciliation  is  still 
possible. 

3.  It  has  always  been  an  ambition  with  the  determin- 
ists  to  show  that  there  is  no  real  controversy  in  the  case, 
that  all  the  difficulty  has  arisen  from  a  misunderstandin<^ 
of  the  terms  employed  on  either  side,  and  that  Necessity, 
rightly  understood,   does   not   exclude   Freedom,   rightly 
understood.     This  "  reconciling  project "  is  as  old  as  Ed- 
wards, with  his  distinction  of  the  free  man  and  the  deter- 
mined luill;  but  its  greatest  advocate  is  Hume.i     One  of 
its  latest  and  not  least  persuasive  advocates  is  Mr  Shad- 
worth  Hodgson,  who  insists  ^  that  "  the  true  and  proper 
meaning  of  Freedom  is  freedom  as  opposed  to  compulsion  ; 
and  the  true  and  proper  meaning  of  Necessity  is  necessity 
as  opposed  to  contingency.     Thus,  freedom  being  opposed 
to  compulsion,  and  necessity  to  contingency,  there  is  no 
antithetical  opposition  between  freedom  and   necessity." 
Determinism    maintains    the    uniformity    of    nature,    or 
necessity,  as  opposed  to  contingency,  not  to  freedom ;  and 
therefore  "  a  determinist  is  perfectly  at  liberty  to  main- 
tain the  freedom  of  the  will."     Accordingly,  while  "  inde- 

^  'Enquiry  concerning  Human  Understanding,'  sect.  viii. 
2  'Mind,' vi.  111. 


terminism  imagines  a  freedom  apart  from  necessity  .    .    . 
necessity  is  the  inseparable  condition,  or  rather   let   us 
say  co-element,  of  freedom.     And  without  that  co-element, 
freedom  is  as  incapable  of  being  construed  to  thought,  is 
something  as  impossible  as  walking  without  ground   to 
tread  on,  or  flying  without  air  to  beat."  ^     This,  Mr  Hodg- 
son further  maintains,  is  the  only  freedom  that  interests 
the  ordinary  man.     "  By  freedom,  whether  of  the  will  or 
anything  else,  men  at  large  mean  freedom  from  compul- 
sion.    What  know  they,  or  care  they,  about  uniformity  of 
nature,  or  predestination,  or  reign  of  law  ? "    The  ordinary 
man   holds   both   ideas   together— the   idea   of  Freedom 
(  =  non-compulsion)  and  the  idea  of  Necessity  ( =  unifor- 
mity) of  actions ;  he  realises  no  contradiction,  as  in  reality 
there  is  none,  between  them.     The  debate  is  between  the 
philosophers  themselves,  and  has  its  source  in  the  am- 
biguity of  the  term  "  necessity."     This  has  been  conceived 
dynamically,  or  as  a  force,— a   misunderstanding  which 
has  arisen  from  carrying  over  the  metaphorical  idea  of 
"law"    into    scientific    and   philosophical   thought.      In 
reality,  whether  applied  to  human  activity  or  to  the  phe- 
nomena  of   nature,  "law"  means  simply  "uniformity." 
But  while  "law"  is  thus  the  merest   "abstraction,  and 
incapable  of  operating  as  an  entity,"  it  has  been  hyposta- 
tised  not  merely  as  the  agent  in  the  occurrences  of  nature, 
but  also  as  the  agent  in  the  process  of  human  activity. 

In  such  argumentation  one  can  hardly  help  suspecting  a 
certain  sleight  of  hand;  one  can  hardly  believe  that  a 
debate  of  this  kind  is  altogether  a  war  of  words.  And 
one   cannot  but  note   that  such  an  evaporation  of   the 


1  '  Mind,'  V.  252. 


356 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    FREEDOM. 


357 


debate  into  the  thin  air  of  pure  verbiage  is  always  equiv- 
alent to  its  settlement   in  favour  of  determinism.     The 
interpretation  of  "necessity,"  suggested  in  the  sentences 
just  quoted  from  Mr  Hodgson,  is  interesting  and  signifi- 
cant.    It  indicates  that  the  complexion  of   the  question 
has  changed  considerably  since  the  classical  presentation 
of  it  by  Edwards.     Determinism  no  Ioniser  takes  the  "  hi^^h 
priori "  road  of  the  older  Necessitarians ;  it  is  now  content 
to  follow  the  humbler  path  of  "  scientific  method."    Hume 
has,  once  for  all,  emptied  the  conception  of  Necessity,  for 
the  scientific  mind,  and  for  the  mind  of  the  empiricist  in 
philosophy,  of  all  suggestion  of  mystery  and  force ;  and  it 
would  seem  that  the  mere  "  uniformity  "  which  is  left  is  a 
very  innocent  affair,  and  quite  consistent  with  freedom. 
Yet  I  cannot  think  that  this  is  the  case.     "  Non-compul- 
sion "  is  certainly  one  element  in  the  notion  of  freedom, 
but  it  is  not  the  whole  notion.     If  it  were,  man  could  be 
called  free  only  in  a  sense  in  which  Nature  is  also  free. 
For,  as  we  have  just  seen,  Necessity  has   no  dynamical 
content  even  in  the  sphere  of  natural  occurrences;  the 
"laws   of    nature"   are   simply   the    uniformities   which 
characterise  the  behaviour   of   bodies.     But  there  is,  as 
Professor  James  insists,  an  additional  and  no  less  essen- 
tial element  in  the  notion  of  Freedom— viz.,  the  element 
of   "contingency"   or   "chance."      Absolute    uniformity 
would   be,   no   less    than    compulsion,   the    negation    of 
freedom. 

At  the  same  time,  this  paring  down  of  Necessity  to 
mere  Uniformity  is  a  certain  contribution  to  the  solu- 
tion of  our  problem.  While  the  advocates  of  freedom, 
instead  of  giving  up  the  element  of  contingency,  must 


continue  to  contend  for  a  power  of  free  and  incalculable 
initiation  in  the  Self,  we  can  yet  see  how  the  life  of  freedom 
may  be  realised  in  the  midst  of  mechanical  uniformity ; 
how  it  may,  so  to  speak,  annex  the  latter,  and  use  it  in 
its  own  interests.  In  a  narrower  sense  Necessity,  in- 
terpreted as  Uniformity,  may  be  called  "  the  co-element 
of  Freedom."  As  Lotze  says :  "  Freedom  itself,  in  order 
that  it  may  even  be  thought  of  as  being  what  it  aims  at 
being,  postulates  a  very  widely  extended,  although  not  an 
exclusive,  prevalence  of  the  law  of  causation."  But,  if 
Freedom  is  to  be  saved,  the  causal  Uniformity  must  not 
be  all-inclusive ;  it  must  not  include  the  moral  Self.  Uni- 
formity or  mechanism  may  be  instrumental,  an  organic 
element  in  the  life  of  the  self ;  but  the  supreme  category 
of  that  life  is  Freedom. 

4   The  Dreceding  considerations  make  necessary  a  re-  Definition 

^'  r  o  IP         •  1  •  of  moral 

vision  of  the  conception  of  Freedom  itself,  with  a  view  Freedom: 

,  1        T      -J.    4-*         its  limit- 

to  its  more  exact  definition,  and,  it  may  be,  limitation,  ations. 

Freedom  means,  we  have  just  seen,  contingency ;  but  it 
does  not  therefore  mean  mere  and  absolute  indefiniteness 
or  caprice.  Certain  lines  are  laid  down  for  each  man, 
in  his  inner  "  nature "  and  outward  circumstances,  along 
which  to  develop  a  "character."  A  man  has  not  the 
universal  field  of  possibilities  to  himself;  each  has  his 
own  moral  "  sphere."  This  is  determined  for  him,  it  is 
the  "given"  element  in  his  life.  Two  factors,  an  in- 
ternal and  an  external,  contribute  to  such  determination. 
The  internal  factor  is  the  "nature,"  "disposition,"  or 
"temperament,"  psychological  and  physiological,  which 
constitutes  his  initial  equipment  for  the  moral  life.     The 


f 


358 


METAPHYSICAL  IMPLICATIONS. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM. 


359 


external  factor  consists  in  the  "  force  of  circumstance," 
the   places  and  opportunities  of  his  life,  what  is  ofteii 
called   his  "  environment/'  physical   and   social.     So   far 
there  is  determination  ;   so  far  the  field  of  his  activity 
is  defined  for  each  man.     But  unless  out  of  these  two 
factors,  the  external  and  the  internal,  you  can  construct 
the  moral  man,  room  is  still  left  for  freedom.    Its  '* sphere" 
may  be  determined ;  the  specific  form  and  complexion  of 
the  moral  task  may  be  different  for  each,  and  determined 
for  each.     But   the   moral   alternative   lies   within   this 
sphere.     All  that  is  necessary  to  constitute  it  is  the  pos- 
sibility for  the  man  of  good  or  evil,  not  of  any  or  every 
particular  form  of  good  and  evil.     They  may  take  any 
form,  and  what  form  they  shall  take  is  determined  for 
the  individual,  not  ly  him.     But  the  choice  between  the 
alternatives  is  essentially  the  same  in  all  cases ;  it  is  a 
choice  between  good  and  evil,  and  that  choice  must  be 
shown  to  belong  to  the  individual.     Inner  "  nature  "  and 
outward  circumstances  are,  as  it  were,  a  raw  material  out 
of  which  he  has  to  create  a  character— a  plastic  material 
which,  like  the   sculptor,  he  has  to  subdue  to  his  own 
formative  idea. 

The  grand  moral  limitation  is  individuality.  It  is  just 
because  we  are  individuals  that  the  Moral  Ideal  takes  a 
different  complexion  for  each  of  us,  and  that  no  man's 
moral  task  is  exactly  like  his  brother's.  Yet,  amid  all  the 
variety  of  detail,  the  grand  outlines  of  the  task  remain  the 
same  for  all.  In  its  very  nature,  that  task  is  universal ; 
and  though  it  must  be  realised  in  a  variety  of  concrete 
particulars,  it  may  be  realised  in  any  particulars,  without 
losing  its  universal  significance.    For  each  man  there  is 


an  Ideal,  an  Ought-to-be ;  for  each  man  there  is  the  same 
choice,  with  the  same  momentous  meaning,  between  good 
and  evil.     To  each  there  is  set  fundamentally  the  same 
task — out  of  nature  and  circumstance — the  equipment 
wen  and  the  occasion  offered,  to  create  a  character.    For 
character  is,  in  its  essence,  a  creation,  as  the  statue  is ; 
though,  like  the  statue,  it  implies  certain  given  materials. 
What,  in  detail,  character  shall  be,  in  what  way  good  and 
in  what  way  evil,  depends  upon  the  given   elements  of 
nature  and  circumstance ;  whether  it  shall  be  good  or  evil 
must  depend  upon  the  man  himself.     Out  of  the  plastic 
material  to  create  a  character,  formed  after  the  pattern  of 
the  heavenly  beauty,  that  is   the   peculiar  human  task. 
Is  not  the  material  of  the  moral  life  essentially  plastic  ? 
Out  of  the  most  unpromising  material  have  we  not  often 
seen   surprising   moral   creations  ?     Just   when  the  task 
seemed   hardest,   and  came  nearest  to  being  impossible, 
have  we  not  sometimes  seen  the  highest  fulfilments  of  it  ? 
And  with  the  most  promising  material  do  we  not  often  see 
conspicuous   moral   failure?     Must   we   not   admit    that 
success  or  failure  here  is  determined  ultimately  not  by 
the  material,  but  by  the  free  play  of  the  energy  of  the 
Self  ? 

5.  It  is  the  task  of  philosophy  to  resolve  this  antithesis,  The  result- 
to  heal  the  apparent  breach  between  the  scientific  and  the  physical 

^^  1     •  •      1      problem. 

moral  consciousness,  to  mediate  between  their  seemingly 
rival  claims  and  interests.  Various  philosophical  solu- 
tions are  possible.  It  may  be  that  the  scientific  (which  is 
here  the  psychological)  view  is  the  only  available  "ex- 
planation" of  human  life.     Should  that  be  so,  freedom 


360 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM. 


361 


would  be  lost   so  far  as  knowledge   is   concerned.     We 
might  still,  of  course,  adopt  the  agnostic  attitude,  and  say 
that  the  ultimate  or  noumenal  reality  is  here,  as  elsewhere, 
unknowable.    But  to  insist  upon  the  finality  and  adequacy 
of  the  scientific  or  psychological  view  is  to  pass  beyond 
science,  and  to  take  up  a  philosophical  or  metaphysical 
position.     The  philosophical  proof  of  freedom,  therefore, 
must    be   the   demonstration   of   the  inadequacy  of   the 
categories  of  science :  its  philosophical  disproof  must  be 
the  demonstration  of  the  adequacy  of  such  scientific  cate- 
gories.    In  the  words  of  Mr  Shadworth  Hodgson,  "  Either 
liberty  is  true,  and  then  the  categories  are  insufficient ;  or 
the   categories    are    sufficient,    and    then    liberty    is    a 
delusion."      Such  a  determination  of  the  sufficiency  or 
insufficiency   of   scientific   categories  is  the   business   of 
philosophy  as  universal  "  critic."    A  negative  as  well  as 
a  positive  vindication  of  freedom,  therefore,  is  possible— 
the   former   by  the   condemnation   of   the   categories   of 
science   as   insufficient,    the   latter   by   the   provision   of 
higher  and  sufficient  categories  for  its  explanation.     Even 
if  such  higher  categories  should  not  be  forthcoming,  and 
we  should  find  ourselves  unable  to  formulate  a  theory  of 
Freedom,  or  to  categorise  the  moral  life,  we  might  still 
vindicate  its  possibility. 

That  the  question  of  Freedom  is  ultimately  a  metaphys- 
ical one,  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  all  deterministic 
theories  base  themselves,  either  explicitly  or  implicitly, 
upon  a  definite  metaphysic.  The  denial  of  individual 
freedom  is,  for  instance,  the  obvious  corollary  of  such  a 
pantheistic  metaphysic  as  Spinoza's.  Human  personality 
being  resolved  into  the  all-comprehending  Divine  Nature, 


from  the  necessity  of  which  all  things,  without  exception, 
follow,  man's  conception  of  his  freedom  and  of  his  result- 
ing importance  as  an  imperium  in  im;perio  is  explained  away 
as'an  illusion  of  his  ignorance,  destined  to  disappear  in  an 
*'  adequate  "  knowledge  of  the  universe.     The  consequence 
is  strictly  logical.     If  I  am  not  a  person,  but  merely  an 
"  aspect "  or  "  expression  "  of  the  universe  or  God,  I  can- 
not be  free.     The  life  of  the  universe  is  mine  also :  free- 
dom is  predicated,  in  such  a  system,  of  God  alone,  and 
even   of   him   in   no   moral   sense.      Materialism,   again, 
carries  with  it  the  same  ethical  consequence.     If  matter 
is  everything,  and  spirit  merely  its  last  and  most  com- 
plex  manifestation,   once   more   freedom  is   an   illusion. 
Freedom  means  spiritual  independence;  and  if  spirit  is 
the  mere  product  of  matter,  its  life  cannot  in  the  end 
escape  the  bondage  of   material  law.      The  evolutional 
metaphysic,  whether  of  the  biological  or  of  the  mechan- 
ical type,  also  obviously  binds  its  adherents  to  the  denial 
of  freedom.     Moral  life  is  interpreted  either  as  a  series 
of  adjustments  of  the  individual  to  his  environment,  or 
as  a  series  of  balancings  of  equilibrium.     In  neither  case 
is  room  left  for  freedom,  or  a  "  new  beginning." 

In  such  cases  as  those  just  indicated,  the  connection  of 
the  interpretation  of  human  life  with  the  general  meta- 
physical theory  is  obvious  enough.  The  connection,  though 
not  less  obvious,  has  not  been  so  generally  remarked,  in 
the  case  of  the  "  psychological "  theory  of  determinism. 
This  theory  has  been  chiefly  studied  in  the  form  given 
to  it  by  Mill,  and  in  that  form  the  parallel  between  the 
metaphysical  sensationalism  and  the  ethical  determinism 
is  easily  detected.     The  theory  was  originally  stated,  how- 


The  prob- 
lem of 
Freedom  is 
the  prob- 
lem of  Per- 
sonality. 
The  alter- 
native sol- 
utions— the 
empirical 
and  the 
transcen- 
dental. 


360 


METAPHYSICAL  IMPLICATIONS. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM. 


361 


would  be  lost  so  far  as  knowledge  is  concerned.  We 
might  still,  of  course,  adopt  the  agnostic  attitude,  and  say 
that  the  ultimate  or  noumenal  reality  is  here,  as  elsewhere, 
unknowable.  But  to  insist  upon  the  finality  and  adequacy 
of  the  scientific  or  psychological  view  is  to  pass  beyond 
science,  and  to  take  up  a  philosophical  or  metaphysical 
position.  The  philosophical  proof  of  freedom,  therefore, 
must  be  the  demonstration  of  the  inadequacy  of  the 
categories  of  science :  its  philosophical  disproof  must  be 
the  demonstration  of  the  adequacy  of  such  scientific  cate- 
gories. In  the  words  of  Mr  Shadworth  Hodgson,  "  Either 
liberty  is  true,  and  then  the  categories  are  insufficient ;  or 
the  categories  are  sufficient,  and  then  liberty  is  a 
delusion."  Such  a  determination  of  the  sufficiency  or 
insufficiency  of  scientific  categories  is  the  business  of 
philosophy  as  universal  "  critic."  A  negative  as  well  as 
a  positive  vindication  of  freedom,  therefore,  is  possible — 
the  former  by  the  condemnation  of  the  categories  of 
science  as  insufficient,  the  latter  by  the  provision  of 
higher  and  sufficient  categories  for  its  explanation.  Even 
if  such  higher  categories  should  not  be  forthcoming,  and 
we  should  find  ourselves  unable  to  formulate  a  theory  of 
Freedom,  or  to  categorise  the  moral  life,  we  might  still 
vindicate  its  possibility. 

That  the  question  of  Freedom  is  ultimately  a  metaphys- 
ical one,  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  all  deterministic 
theories  base  themselves,  either  explicitly  or  implicitly, 
upon  a  definite  metaphysic.  The  denial  of  individual 
freedom  is,  for  instance,  the  obvious  corollary  of  such  a 
pantheistic  metaphysic  as  Spinoza's.  Human  personality 
being  resolved  into  the  all-comprehending  Divine  Nature, 


from  the  necessity  of  which  all  things,  without  exception, 
follow,  man's  conception  of  his  freedom  and  of  his  result- 
ing importance  as  an  imperium  in  imjperio  is  explained  away 
as\n  illusion  of  his  ignorance,  destined  to  disappear  in  an 
«'  adequate  "  knowledge  of  the  universe.     The  consequence 
is  strictly  logical.     If  I  am  not  a  person,  but  merely  an 
"  aspect "  or  "  expression  "  of  the  universe  or  God,  I  can- 
not be  free.     The  life  of  the  universe  is  mine  also :  free- 
dom is  predicated,  in  such  a  system,  of  God  alone,  and 
even   of   him   in   no   moral   sense.      Materialism,   again, 
carries  with  it  the  same  ethical  consequence.     If  matter 
is  everything,  and  spirit  merely  its  last  and  most  com- 
plex  manifestation,   once   more   freedom   is   an   illusion. 
Freedom  means  spiritual  independence;  and  if  spirit  is 
the  mere  product  of  matter,  its  life  cannot  in  the  end 
escape  the  bondage  of   material  law.      The  evolutional 
metaphysic,  whether  of  the  biological  or  of  the  mechan- 
ical type,  also  obviously  binds  its  adherents  to  the  denial 
of  freedom.     Moral  life  is  interpreted  either  as  a  series 
of  adjustments  of  the  individual  to  his  environment,  or 
as  a  series  of  balancings  of  equilibrium.     In  neither  case 
is  room  left  for  freedom,  or  a  "  new  beginning." 

In  such  cases  as  those  just  indicated,  the  connection  of 
the  interpretation  of  human  life  with  the  general  meta- 
physical theory  is  obvious  enough.  The  connection,  though 
not  less  obvious,  has  not  been  so  generally  remarked,  in 
the  case  of  the  "  psychological "  theory  of  determinism. 
This  theory  has  been  chiefly  studied  in  the  form  given 
to  it  by  Mill,  and  in  that  form  the  parallel  between  the 
metaphysical  sensationalism  and  the  ethical  determinism 
is  easily  detected.     The  theory  was  originally  stated,  how- 


The  prob- 
lem of 
Freedom  is 
the  prob- 
lem of  Per- 
sonality. 
The  alter- 
native sol- 
utions— the 
empirical 
and  the 
transcen- 
dental. 


362 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    FREEDOM. 


363 


ever,  by  Hume,  and  its  logical  dependence  upon  his  philo- 
sophical empiricism  or  sensationalism  is  no  less  evident. 
If  "I"  am  resolvable  into  the  series  of  my  conscious 
states ;  if  "  I "  am  merely  the  bundle  or  mass  of  sensations 
and  appetites,  desires,  affections,  and  passions  which  con- 
stitute my  "experience";  if,  in  short,  my  existence  is 
entirely  phenomenal,  —  then  the  phenomena  which  are 
"  me  "  can  be  accounted  for,  or  refunded  into  their  ante- 
cedents, like  any  other  phenomena  which  are  "  animals  " 
or  "  things." 

Here,  then,  emerges  the  sole  possibility  of  a  metaphysi- 
cal vindication  of  Freedom— namely,  in  another  than  the 
Humian,  empirical,  or  "psychological"  account  of  the 
moral  Person  or  Self.  The  nature  of  the  Self  is  a  meta- 
physical question,  and  must  be  investigated  as  such ;  it  is 
not  to  be  taken  for  granted  on  the  empirical  or  sensation- 
alist side.  There  is  another  alternative  account,  the  tran- 
scendental or  idealistic— viz.,  that  the  Self,  so  far  from 
being  equivalent  to  the  sum  of  its  particular  experiences 
or  "  feelings,"  is  their  permanent  subject  and  presupposi- 
tion. Thus  the  central  problem  of  morality  is  seen  to  be, 
like  the  central  problem  of  knowledge,  the  nature  and 
function  of  the  Self.  We  have  to  choose  between  an 
empirical  and  a  transcendental  solution  of  both  problems. 
If,  on  the  one  hand,  the  Self  is  resolvable  into  its  pheno- 
menal states,  if  these  exhaust  its  nature,  the  case  for  free- 
dom is  lost:  these  states  determine  and  are  determined 
by  one  another  in  the  unbroken  nexus  of  antecedent  and 
consequent.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  such  a  resolution  of 
the  Self  into  its  successive  experiences  is  impossible,  if 
moral  experience  presupposes  at  each  stage  the  presence 


and  operation  of  a  permanent  Self,  the  case  for  freedom  is 
made  good. 

6   That  the  latter,  and  not  the  former,  is  the  true  state-  ^e  tran-^ 
ment  of  the  case,  has,  I  think,  been  finally  proved  by  the  solution, 
transcendental  analysis  of  experience.    It  is  still  possible 
of  course,  to  rest  in  the  scientific  or  psychological  view  of 
moral  activity ;  one  may  not  be  prepared  to  adopt  the 
transcendental  standpoint,  and  may  fall  back  upon  the 
psychological  or  empirical  view,  as  more  in  accordance 
^yith  "common-sense."      Moral,  like  intellectual   scepti- 
cism, and  even  agnosticism,  are  still,  even  after  Kant  and 
He"el,  intelligible  attitudes  of  thought.    But  unless  it  is 
shown  that  the  scientific  or  psychological  is  the  final  and 
adequate  or  metaphysical  view  ;  unless,  that  is,  the  whole 
Self  is  resolved  into  its  several  states  or  its  "  experience, 
-freedom  is  not  disproved.      Now,  such   an   empirical 
resolution  of  the  self  is  as  impossible  in  the  moral  as  in 
the  intellectual   sphere;   the   phenomenal    or   empirical 
view  when  offered  as  a  mctaphysic,  is  at  once  seen  to  be 
abstract  and  inadequate.      To  understand  or  think  out 
the  moral,  equally  with   the  intellectual  life,  we  must 
regard  the  former  as,  like  the  latter,  the  product  of  the 
activity  of  the  Self.     That  activity  is  the  heart  and  centre 
of  the  process,  from  which  alone  its  real  nature  is  recog- 
nised.   Neither  the  moral  nor  the  intellectual  man  can  be 
resolved  into  his  "  experience."    It  implies  him ;  for,  qxid^^ 
"  experience,"  it  is  not  a  mere  series  or  sum  of  "states," 
but  the  gathering  up  of  these  in  the  continuous  and  single 
life  of  an  identical  Self.    In  order  to  the  establishment  of 
determinism,  all  the  elements  of  the  action  must  be  known 


364 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


and  observed  as  its  phenomenal  factors ;  but  the  source  of 
the  action  cannot  be  thus  phenomenalised.     Determinism 
gives  a  mere  dissection  or  anatomy  of  the  action.     Under 
its  analysis,  the  living  whole  of  the  action  itself  is  dissolved 
into  its  dead  elements ;  the  constitutive  synthetic  principle 
of  the  ethical  life  is  absent.     That  principle  is  the  Self,  or 
moral  Personality,  to  which  the  action  must  be  referred  if 
we  would  see  it  as  a  whole  and  from  within.     Motive, 
circumstance,  temperament,  character— the  several  stoneJ 
of  the  determinist  structure— all  imply  such  an  activity 
of  the  Self,  if  they  are  to  enter  as  living  factors  into  the 
moral  situation.     And  the  Self  which  is  shown  to  be  the 
source  of  this  original  and  formative  activity  is  thereby 
proved  to  be  free.     The  Self  cannot  be  snared,  any  more 
than  the  spider,  in  the  web  of  its  own  weaving. 

The  transcendental  proof  is  essentially  the  same  in  the 
case  of  the  moral  and   the   intellectual  life.     It  is  the 
necessary  complement,  in  either  case,  of  the  empirical  or 
psychological    view.      For   the   "previous    question"   of 
metaphysics  or  "  first  philosophy  "  is :  How  is  experience 
Itself  possible  ?    Experience,  not  being  self-explanatory, 
requires  to  be  explained.     The  empirical  or  psychological 
Self  is  not  ultimate,  but  only  "  phenomenal " :  we  must 
therefore  ask.  What  is  the  Self  which  manifests  itself  in 
these  phenomena  or  "  states,"  and  what  is  the  rationale  of 
Its  self -manifestation?    The   transcendental   answer  is, 
that  the  entire  process  of  experience  is  a  process  of  Self- 
activity.      The  psychologist  is  concerned  only  with  the 
empirical  process ;  his  business  is  to  establish  the  true 
causal  connections  between   the  antecedent   and   conse- 
quent phenomena.      But  if,  in  an  intellectual  reference, 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    FREEDOM. 


365 


it  can  be  shown  that  the  presupposition  of  knowledge  is  a 
constant  activity  on  the  part  of  the  Self  in  the  synthesis 
of  the  presensational  data,  that  without  a  unifying  Self  the 
ordered  unity  of  experience  would  be  impossible,  it  is  no 
less  evident  that  without  a  similar  synthetic  activity  on 
the  part  of  a  single  central  rational   Self   the  unity  of 
moral  experience  would  also   be   impossible.^     The  Self 
weaves  the  web  of   its  own  experience,  intellectual  and 
moral.     Out  of  "  wants,"  out  of  animal  promptings,  out  of 
the  provocations  of  sensibility,  the  Self,  by  an  activity  of 
appropriation,  constitutes  "  motives  "  or  "  ends  "  of  its  own 
activity.     The  entire  process  of  motivation  takes  place 
within  the  circle  of  its  being,  and  is  conducted  by  itself. 
To  press  the  psychological  or  empirical  view,  and  to  insist 
that  the  scientific  interpretation  of  the  moral  life  is  the 
ultimate  and  sufficient  interpretation  of  it,  is  to  rest  in  a 
superficial  view  when  a  deeper  view  is  possible  and  neces- 
sary.    The  empirical  or  phenomenal  Self  may  be  regarded 
as  the  mere  subject  of  "  motive-forces,"  of  tendencies  and 
counter-tendencies,  whose   "  resultant "  describes  its  life. 
But  when  we  ask  what  a  "  motive  "  is,  we  find  that  it  is 
nothing  apart  from  the  Ego;  it  is  mine,  I  have  made  it.    I 
am  not  merely  the  subject  of  tendencies,  or  the  permanent 
deposit  of  tendency.     I  am  the  theatre  of  the  entire  pro- 
cess ;  it  goes  on  within  me. 

Hence  the  well-marked  limits  of  psychological  explana- 
tion. The  life  of  man,  which  is  in  its  essence  a  personal 
life,  is  regarded  by  psychology  as  an  impersonal  "  stream 

1  The  parallel  between  the  intellectual  and  the  moral  activity  of  the 
Self  is  strikingly  enforced  by  Green,  'Prolegomena  to  Ethics,'  bk.  ii.,  and 
by  Professor  Laurie,  in  his  companion  volumes  '  Metaphysica '  and  '  Ethica. 


366 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    FREEDOM. 


367 


Difficulties 
of  the 
transcen- 
dental sol- 
ution :  (a) 
psycholog- 
ical diffi. 
culty  offer- 
ed by  the 
"presenta- 
tional " 
theory  of 
Will. 


of  thought,"  a  series  of  phenomenal  "  states  of  conscious- 
ness." But  metaphysics  must  correct  the  abstractness 
of  psychology,  as  it  corrects  the  abstractness  of  science 
generally,  and  must  re-view  the  moral  life  from  its  per- 
sonal centre,— from  the  standpoint  of  that  Self-hood  which, 
as  unifying  principle,  is  not  to  be  phenomenalised,  because 
without  its  constant  operation  there  would  be  no  phe- 
nomenal process  at  all ;  which  cannot  itself  be  accounted 
for  or  explained  by  psychology,  because  it  is  presupposed 
in  every  psychological  explanation. 

In  particular,  we  have  found  that  the  ethical  view  of 
life  is  the  personal  view  of  it.  Personal  "  behaviour  "  has 
ethical  significance  :  impersonal  behaviour  has  none.  The 
psychological  or  impersonal  view  even  of  morality  is 
quite  legitimate,  and  valuable  so  far  as  it  goes.  But  the 
final  explanation  of  morality  demands  that  we  view  it 
from  the  ethical  standpoint  of  Personality,  which  we  have 
just  seen  to  be  also  the  inevitable  standpoint  of  meta- 
physical explanation  in  general.  Here  is  the  centre  of 
the  circle  whose  circumference  psychology  has  so  care- 
fully and  laboriously  described. 

7.  But  our  metaphysics  of  the  Self  must  be  based  upon 
our  psychology  of  the  Self,  and  serious  difficulty  is  offered 
to  the  transcendental  theory  by  a  leading  tendency  of 
current  psychology— the  tendency,  namely,  to  adopt  what 
Dr  Ward  has  called  a  "  presentational "  view  of  the  Self. 
This  is  the  view  of  those  who  hold  that  we  can  have 
a  "psychology  without  a  soul."  It  is  insisted  that  we 
must  not  predicate  the  existence  of  a  hyper-phenomenal 
reality  in  the  mental   any  more   than   in  the   physical 


world ;  the  Dirtg-an-sich  is  equally  unreal  in  both  cases. 
The  real  is  the  phenomenal  or  empirical,  that  which  can 
be  observed  and  classified ;  and  what  we  do  observe  and 
classify  is  not  "  the  soul "  or  any  "  pure  Ego,"  but  simply 
"  mental  phenomena  "  or  the  "  psychological  Me."     There 
are  mental  "events,"  as  there  are  physical  events;  and 
we  can  trace,  in  either  case,  the  relations  of  antecedents  to 
consequents  in  the  series,  as  well  as  the  relation  of  the  one 
series  to  the  other.     Psychology,  as  a  "  natural  science," 
must  limit  itself  to  the  "  phenomena,"  and  its  success  in 
accounting  for  all  the  phenomena  without  the  hypothesis 
of  a  mind  or  Ego  as  their  "'  place  "  or  cause,  suggests  very 
forcibly,  if  it  does  not  prove,  the  superfluity— even  for 
metaphysics  —  of  such  a  hypothesis.     "  Entia  non  sunt 
multiplicanda  prieter  necessitatem,"  and   it  seems  as  if 
scientific  psychology  had  taken  away  the  occupation  of  the 
metaphysical  Self. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  maintained  that  we  cannot  know 
the  pure  Ego,  the  identical  Soul,  or  "  I,"  because  it  is  never 
"  presented,"  it  never  becomes  part  of  the  "  content "  of  con- 
sciousness. All  that  is  presented,  and  can  be  known,  is 
consciousness  itself ,— conscious  "  states  "  or  "  phenomena," 
the  empirical,  changing,  transient  Ego,  or  the  "  Me."  What 
cannot  be  phenomenalised  cannot  be  known,  and,  ex  vi  ter- 
mini the  pure  Ego  or  transcendental  Self,  as  the  condition 
of  all  phenomena,  is  itself  the  unphenomenal  or  non-pre- 
sentable. This  is,  of  course,  no  discovery  of  the  "  new  " 
psychology.  It  is  the  familiar  doctrine  of  sensationalism 
and  empiricism,  and  is  as  old  as  the  Sophists.  The  sole 
ascertainable  reality,  the  latter  held,  is  the  momentary 
sensation,  the  ;perci;pere  and  the  jpercipi.     Neither  subject 


368 


■H 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    FREEDOM. 


369 


nor  object  has  any  identical  or  independent  existence,  the 
psychological  moment  is  all  that  we  can  be  sure  of.     The 
Lockian  school  also  found  in  the  "  idea  "  or  sensation  the 
only  certain  fact.     Berkeley  saw,  hardly  less  clearly  than 
Hume,  that  we  can  never  "  know  "  the  Self ;  our  know- 
ledge, he  holds,  is  confined  to  our  "  ideas  "  (  =  sensations  or 
presentations),  and  we  can  never  have  an  idea  or  sensation 
of  the  Self,  the  Subject  of  all  "  ideas."   And  Hume  reported 
that  he  "  never  caught  himself  without  a  perception  "  ;  the 
only  self  he  caught  was  a  sensational  self,  the  only  psy- 
chical reality  was  the  sensation  of  the  moment.     When, 
therefore,  "  psychology  as  a  natural  science  "  insists  upon 
objectifying  or  sensationalising  the  Self,  and  refuses  to 
acknowledge  the  psychological  value  of  a  Self  which  can- 
not be  "  presented  "  or  phenomenalised,  it  is  only  carrying 
out  the  tradition  of  the  older  empirical  metaphysics. 

But,  further,  it  is  maintained  that  we  can  account  for  the 
only  Self  there  is,— for  the  empirical  Ego,  or  the  psycho- 
logical "  Me,"  without  invoking  the  hypothesis  of  a  tran- 
scendental and  pure  Ego  or  "  I."    The  "  Me  "  is  self-explan- 
atory, and  calls  for  no  reference  to  an  "  I "  beyond  itself. 
Here  one  cannot  help  remarking  how  much  the  theory  has 
gained  in  plausibility  through  the  advance  of  scientific 
psychology.     This  has  revealed,  first,  that  the  presenta- 
tional series  is  a  continuum,  a  fluid  "  stream  "  rather  than 
a  rigid  "  chain  "  of  sensations.     The  individual  presenta- 
tion is  not  an  isolated  point,  self-contained  and  self-exclu- 
sive :  it  points  beyond  itself  for  the  apprehension  of  its 
own  reality ;  its  character,  both  qualitative  and  quantita- 
tive, is  determined  by  its  place  in  the  series  of  presenta- 
tions or  the  "  fringe  "  of  consciousness,  by  its  context  or 


"  setting."  The  mental  life,  as  empirically  manifested,  is 
not  discrete  and  "  atomic,"  does  not  consist  of  isolated 
sensations  or  "simple  ideas,"  but  is  in  its  very  nature 
continuous.  The  problem  of  "  synthesis  "  accordingly,  it 
is  claimed,  is  in  large  measure  solved  without  any  appeal 
to  a  transcendental  Ego  ;  with  the  surrender  of  the  "  ato- 
mic "  theory  of  consciousness,  and  the  acceptance  of  a 
"  stream  of  thought,"  the  problem  of  synthesis  ceases  to  be 
a  problem.  Secondly,  for  the  old  meagre  synthetic  prin- 
ciple of  simple  Association  contemporary  psychology  sub- 
stitutes the  much  more  adequate  and  scientific  principle  of 
Apperception  (in  the  Herbartian  sense)  or  "  Systematic 
Association."  This  principle  provides  for  a  much  more  in- 
timate connection  between  the  parts  of  the  mental  life 
than  that  of  mere  simple  Association.  For  the  mechanical 
unity  of  the  latter  it  substitutes  an  organic  unity,  and 
where  association  yielded  aggregates,  apperception  yields 
wholes  or  "  systems."  Apperception  is  "  the  process  by 
which  a  mental  system  incorporates,  or  tends  to  incor- 
porate, a  new  element;"  it  is  the  process  of  mental 
assimilation  (emotional  and  volitional  as  well  as  intel- 
lectual) by  which  the  new  is  not  merely  added  to  the 
old,  but  each  is  so  adjusted  to  the  other  that  the  new 
becomes  old  and  the  old  becomes  new.  Thus,  once  more, 
the  unity  and  continuity  of  the  mental  life  seem  to  be 
explained,  consistently  with  its  never-ceasing  change  alike 
in  form  and  content.  The  genesis  of  the  only  Self  we 
know  seems  to  have  been  fully  accounted  for  on  purely 
empirical  principles. 

Yet  I  do  not  see  that  psychology  has  shown  cause  for 
discarding  the  transcendental  or  metaphysical  Self.     On 

2a 


370 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM. 


371 


the  contrary,  such  a  hypothesis,  truly  understood,  seems 
to  me  to  be  the  necessary  implication  of  psychological 
science,  required  to  account  for  that  empirical  Ego  which 
is  its  subject-matter.  Without  the  "  I "  we  could  not  have 
the  "  Me."  For  what  is  the  basal  fact,  the  psychological 
unit  ?  What  is  any  and  every  mental  "  phenomenon,"  as 
such  ?  It  is  certainly  not  a  pure  Ego  or  a  "  self  with- 
out a  sensation,"  but  no  more  is  it  a  sensation  or  a  com- 
plex of  sensations  without  a  Self  or  mind.  The  one 
abstraction  is  no  less  unreal  and  impossible  than  the 
other ;  we  can  no  more  separate  the  sensations  from  the 
Self,  than  the  Self  from  the  sensations.  Or,  to  use  Pro- 
fessor James's  terminology,  we  can  no  more  have  a 
"stream  of  thought"  without  a  thinker  than  a  thinker 
without  thought.  If,  as  Hume  puts  it,  "they  are  the 
successive  perceptions  only  that  constitute  the  mind" 
which  we  can  know,  it  is  because  in  each  of  these  percep- 
tions the  "mind"  is  already  from  the  first  contained. 
The  fundamental  and  elementary  psychological  fact  is 
not  "consciousness,"  but  "conscious  mind,"  or  mind  in  a 
particular  "  state  of  consciousness."  Consciousness  refuses 
to  be  made  objective,  it  ceases  to  be  consciousness  so 
soon  as  it  is  divorced  from  the  conscious  subject.  The 
psychological  unit  is  not  "percipere"  or  "percipi,"  "it 
feels  "  or  "  it  is  felt,"  but  "  percipio,"  "/  feel."  This  sub- 
jective or  personal  reference  constitutes  the  very  "  form  of 
consciousness."  It  is  only  by  hypostatising  or  substan- 
tiating "experience"  or  "consciousness,"  by  making  the 
phenomenal  unphenomenal,  that  the  case  for  a  "  psycho- 
logy without  a  soul"  seems  plausible  at  all.  Hamlet 
without  the  Prince  would  be  nothing  to  the  drama  of  the 


mental  life  without  a  mind.  In  this  drama  there  is  only 
one  player,  but  he  is  a  player  equal  to  every  part,  and  he 
is  never  off  the  stage. 

We  have  only,  to  consider  the  meaning  of  a  psychological 
"phenomenon,"  to  see  the   necessity  of  this   subjective 
reference.    We  speak  of  "  conscious  states  "  or  "  states  of 
consciousness,"  but  the  "state"  is  not  consciousness  of 
itself ;  it  is  a  state  of  my  consciousness.     Abolish  me,  and 
it  ceases  to  exist ;  to  separate  it  from  the  individual  mind 
is  to  contradict  its  very  nature,  and  to  destroy  it.     We 
speak  of  "  mental  phenomena,"  and  reduce  them  to  their 
elements  of  "  presentation."     But  what  is  a  phenomenon 
that  appears  to  no  mind  ?  what  is  a  "  presentation  "  that 
is  presented  to  no  Self  ?     The  metaphysical  demand  for  a 
subject  as  well  as  for  an  object  of  consciousness  becomes 
irresistible  as  soon  as  we  realise  the  meaning  of  our  terms. 
To  phenomenalise  the  Self,  to  objectify  the  Subject,  to 
reduce  the  Ego  to  a  complex  of  presentations,  is  impos- 
sible, for  the  simple  reason  that  an  unphenomenal  Self  is 
necessary  to  the  existence  of  "  phenomena,"  a  subject  which 
cannot  become  its  own  object  is  necessary  to  the  existence 
of  objects,  and  an  unpresented  Ego  to  the  existence  of 
presentations.    "  Since  the  psychical  standpoint — the  stand- 
point, that  is  to  say,  that  the  psychologist  studies — is  the 
real,  if  not  the  logical  presupposition  of  the  physical,  to 
resolve  it  into  the  latter  is  tantamount  to  saying  that  there 
are  phenomena  that  appear  to  no  one,  objects  that  are 
over    against    nothing,    presentations    that    are     never 
presented."  ^     The  impersonal  or  "  objective  "  view  of  the 
mental   life   is   thus   seen   to   be   self-contradictory   and 

1  Ward,  art.  " '  Modern '  Psychology  :  a  Reflexion  "  ('  Mind,'  N.S.  ii.  54). 


372 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM. 


373 


suicidal.  The  very  elements  to  which  it  would  reduce 
the  Self  are  seen  to  imply  the  Self;  the  empirical  or 
phenomenal  reality  stands  or  falls  with  the  reality  of  the 
transcendental  Self.  The  psychologist's  refusal  to  accept 
the  reality  of  the  Self  rests,  like  the  phenomenalist's 
refusal  to  accept  the  reality  of  God,  on  the  ground  that 
the  Self,  like  God,  "does  nothing."  The  answer  is  the 
same  in  both  cases.  It  is  because  the  Self  in  the  subjec- 
tive world,  like  God  in  the  objective,  in  reality  does  every- 
thing  that  it  seems  here,  as  He  seems  there,  to  do  nothing. 
If  the  Self  did  not  do  everything,  if  it  were  not  present  in 
every  presentation,  it  could  never  "  emerge  "  as  the  pro- 
duct of  their  aggregation.  To  say  that  it  could,  is  to 
adopt  a  theory  as  unthinkable  as  the  theory  of  "  mind- 
stuff,"  to  beg  the  question  as  baldly  as  those  do  who 
'*  account  for  "  the  mind  by  endowing  the  elements,  out  of 
which  they  profess  to  manufacture  it,  with  the  properties 
of  mind  itself.  No  combination  of  zeros  will  produce  a 
number. 

When  we  pass  from  the  individual  presentation  or  state 
of  consciousness  to  the  unity  and  system  which  character- 
ise the  mental  life,  when  we  pass  from  the  problem  of  the 
individual  mental  state  to  the  problem  of  the  organisation 
of  the  several  states,  we  find  a  new  function  for  the  uni- 
tary Self.  It  now  becomes  the  "  principle  of  unity,"  and 
only  a  unitary  principle  can  unify.  The  reason  which 
explains  alike  the  continuity  of  the  states  and  their 
systematic  association  or  apperceptive  unity,  is  the  same 
reason  which  explains  their  existence  at  all — viz.,  that 
they  are  the  states  of  a  single  identical  Self.  Only,  the 
Self  which  we  have  as  yet  regarded  as  the  passive  specta- 


tor or  mere  subject  of  the  presentational  states,  must  now 
be  regarded  as  the  agent  that  attends  to  and  selects  from 
among  the  competing  presentations,  and  thus  organises 
them  into  their  apperceptive  wholes.  Without  this  activity, 
we  cannot  explain  the  organisation  of  the  mental  life; 
and  we  cannot  have  the  activity  without  an  agent.  The 
states  do  not  associate  or  organise  themselves :  without  a 
permanent  organic  centre  of  unity,  organisation  is  impos- 
sible. Apperception,  like  the  old  simple  association,  im- 
plies a  Mind  or  Self  to  discharge  such  a  function.  Psy- 
chology may,  of  course,  confine  itself  to  a  statement  of  the 
"  law,"  or  modus  operandi,  of  the  Mind ;  but  an  ultimate 
or  metaphysical  explanation  must  take  account  of  the 
Mind  itself,  as  the  source  of  that  activity. 

And  behind  apperception  there  is  attention.  Without 
the  movement  of  attention,  apperception  would  be  a  very 
inadequate  principle  of  explanation.  The  "systematic" 
character  of  apperceptive  association  is  ultimately  due 
to  attention,  which  is  therefore  the  "  power  behind  the 
throne,"  the  principle  which  explains  the  apperceptive 
system  itself.  For  it  is  the  movement  of  selective  attention 
which  alone  explains  the  fact  of  the  superior  "  interest "  of 
certain  points  as  compared  with  other  points  in  the  "  stream 
of  thought";  without  it,  indifi'erence  would  reign,  and 
there  would  be  no  centres  in  the  mental  life.  "  We  must 
assume  that  the  unique  salience  and  dominance  of  the 
presentations  which  successively  occupy  the  focus  of  con- 
sciousness is  due  to  a  specific  process.  This  process  must 
be  called   attention."^      The  tendency  towards  "  mono- 

1  G.    F.    Stout,   "Apperception    and    the    Movement  of  Attention" 
('Mind,'  xvi.  28). 


'1 

i  if 

f| 


ill 


374 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    FREEDOM. 


375 


ideism"  seems  to  reside  in  the  ideas  themselves,  only 
because  the  ideas  are  inseparable  from  the  mind,  and  it  is 
the  very  nature  of  mind  to  attend,  and,  by  attending,  to 
select.     The  relation  of  apperception  to  attention  has  been 
very  clearly  described  by  Mr  Stout :  "  Every  presentation 
which  is  attended  to  is  also  apperceived.  .  .  .  The  effect 
of  attention  is  to  a  great  extent  dependent  on  the  apper- 
ception which  accompanies  it.     Those  aspects  of  the  pre- 
sentation attended  to,  which  are  congruent  with  the  apper- 
cipient  system,  acquire  special  distinctness.     Others  pass 
unnoticed.      The  physician  will  at  a  glance  detect  in  a 
patient  symptoms  which  have  escaped  the  anxious  scrutiny 
of  friends  and  relatives.     The  reason  for  this  does  not  lie 
in  his  superior  power  of  concentrating  attention.     He  is 
able  to  note  what  they  fail  to  note,  because  in  his  mind 
an  apperceptive  system  has  been  organised,  which  they  do 
not  possess."!     Thus  may  the  Self  delegate  to  the  care  of 
mechanism  that  which  it  has  originally  performed  by  an 
effort  of  attention.     But  the  work  must  originally  be  done 
by  the  Self,  it  continues  to  be  superintended  by  the  Self, 
and  at  any  moment  the  Self  can  intervene  and  modify  the 
apperceptive  system. 

But  the  Self  does  more  than  watch  and  connect,  it  is 
more  than  the  active  subject  of  presentations.  It  com- 
pares and  "  comments " ;  the  vov^  is,  as  Plato  said,  the 
"  critic  "  of  sensation.  Can  we  conceive  of  the  genesis  of 
such  a  "  commenting  intelligence  "  out  of  the  presentations 
themselves  ?  How,  on  the  theory  that  "  all  is  sensation, 
can  there  be  an  element  not  co-ordinate  with  sensation  "  ? 
Can  we  explain  how  the  "  particular  sensation  can  acquire 

1  Ibid.,  30. 


a  wholly  new  kind  of  independence,  and  come  to  measure 
the  worth  of  other  sensations,  or  constitute  the  attitude 
in  which  they  are  '  apprehended '  ? "  ^ 

When  we  pass  from  the  intellectual  to  the  emotional 
and  volitional  life,  the  reality  of  the  subject,  and  the 
impossibility  of  phenomenalising  it  or  reducing  it  to  the 
object,  become  still  more  obvious.      It  is  indeed  to  the 
limitation  of  attention  to  the  cognitional  or  intellectual 
life  that  the  plausibility  of  a  "  psychology  without  a  soul " 
is  largely  due.     Wundt  has  rightly  charged  contemporary 
psychology  with  a  one-sided  "  intellectualism."     And  Dr 
Ward  has  persuasively  shown  that  while,  in  the  intellec- 
tual life,  the  subject  is  content  to  spend  its  entire  activity 
in  equipping  us  for  the  mastery  of  the  object,  in  such  wise 
that  its  own  existence  is  almost  inevitably  lost  in  the 
vision  of  the  world  which  without  it  had  been  impossible, 
yet  in  the  other  two  phases  of  its  undivided  life,  a  no  less 
exclusive  stress  is  laid  by  the  subject  upon  itself.    It  is  in 
the  emotional  and  conative  life  that  the  Ego  may  be  said 
with  unmistakable  emphasis,  and  in  the  only  way  possible, 
to  "  posit  itself."  It  is  chiefly  because  "  feeling  and  activity" 
are  "  elements  irreducible  to  cognition,  and  yet  part  of  the 
facts,"  that  we  find  "  the  antithesis  of  subject  and  object 
to  be  the  very  essence  of  the  science"  of  psychology. 
Feeling  and  activity  are  "  always  subjective,  and  sensations 
always  objective."    Hence  "  the  duality  of  consciousness  or 
the  antithesis  of  subject  and  object  is  fundamental."   Only 
the  extreme  desire  to  make  psychology  a  "  natural "  or 
"  objective "  science  will  account  for  the  thoroughly  un- 

iWard,   art.    "'Modern'    Psychology:    a    Reflexion"   ('Mind,'   N.S. 
ii.  77). 


;i 


Hi 


i\\ 


I 


f. 

If 


V 


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il 


376 


METAPHYSICAL  IMPLICATIONS. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM. 


3V7 


(b)  Meta- 
physical 
difficulty 
of  Trans- 
cendental- 
ism itself. 


scientific  simplification  of  the  mental  life  which  is  accom- 
plished by  the  reduction  of  feeling?  and  volition  to  coo-- 
nitional  elements.     Yet  this  is  what  the  "  presentational " 
theory  attempts  to  do.      The  fundamental  unity  of  the 
mental  life  is  to  be  found  not  in  the  object,  but  in  the 
subject,— in  the  unitary  Self  the  elements  of  whose  com- 
mon   life   are   not   to   be   reduced   to   one   another,  and 
without  it  would  have  no  organic  unity.     And  if  in  the 
cognitional  life  the  "  I "  seems  to  be  lost  in  the  "  Me,"  in 
feeling  and  in  activity  the  "  I "  becomes  the  prime  reality. 
The  presentational  theory  of  the  Self  is  followed  out  to 
its  further  consequences  in  the  "  automaton  "  or  "  parallel- 
ism "  view  of  the  mind  and  its  relation  to  the  body.     If 
we  give  up  "  presentationism  "  and  maintain  the  essential 
activity  of  the  Self,  we  must  abandon,  with  it,  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  mind  as  the  passiye  "  spectator  "  of  "  con- 
comitant "  physical  phenomena. 

8.  We  must  now  turn  from  the  consideration  of  the 
difficulties  offered  by  psychology  to  the  transcendental 
theory  of  Freedom,  to  those  offered  by  metaphysics,  and 
inherent  in  the  transcendental  theory  itself  as  that  theory 
is  generally  stated.  Transcendentalism,  as  well  as  em- 
piricism, has  its  own  peculiar  snares.  These  are  of  two 
opposite  kinds,  illustrated  by  the  Kantian  and  Hegelian 
forms  of  the  theory  respectively.  Kant,  by  making  abso- 
lute the  distinction  between  the  noumenal  or  rational  and 
the  empirical  or  sensible  Self,  by  insisting  that  the  true 
Self,  of  which  alone  freedom  can  be  predicated,  is  a  Self 
that  entirely  transcends  experience, — gives  us  only  an 
empty  and  unreal  freedom.      Hegelianism,  on  the  other 


hand,  by  identifying  the  noumenal  and  phenomenal,  the 
transcendental  and  empirical  Selves,  leaves  no  place  for 
freedom,  and  offers  for  our  acceptance  a  new  determinism. 
This  it  does  in  two  ways,  by  identifying  the  Self  first  with 
the  "  character  "  or  "  experience,"  and  secondly  with  God. 
Let  us  examine  in  turn  the  Kantian  and  the  Hegelian 
form  of  the  transcendental  theory. 

(1)  Kant  sees  no  escape  from  determinism  except  by  (i)lnKant. 

\   /  ^  lanism, 

removing  the  ethical  Self  out  of  the  empirical  or  psycho-  an  empty 
loc^ical  sphere.     Within  the  latter  sphere  there  is  only  real  Free- 

•  dom 

necessity,  and  here,  as  everywhere,  Kant  tries  to  save 
spiritual  reality  by  disproving  the  real  validity  of  our 
knowledge.      Since  our  knowledge  is  only  of   the  phe- 
nomenal and  not  of  the  noumenal  or  essential,  it  can 
never  solve  such  an  ultimate  problem  as  that  of  freedom. 
That,  so  far  as  we  know  it,  our  life  is  one  of  necessity, 
does  not  prove  that,  as  it  is  in  itself,  it  is  not  free.     And 
the  "  practical  reason "  compels  us  to  "  think  "  or  postu- 
late that  freedom  which  the  "speculative   reason"  can 
never   "know."      The   "thou   shalt"   of  the   moral   law 
which,  no  less   truly  than  the   law  of   causation   itself, 
issues  from  the  depths  of  reason,  implies,  in  the  subject 
of  it,  "thou  canst."     It  is  necessary,  therefore,  without 
invalidating  the  scientific  or  empirical  interpretation  of 
our   life,  as  made  from   the   phenomenal   standpoint   of 
science,  to  advance   to  this  other  and  ethical  interpre- 
tation  of  it, —  an  interpretation  no  less  valid  from  the 
noumenal  standpoint  of  Ethics.     As  a  moral  being,  man 
is  free  from  the  "  heteronomy  "  of  nature  and  sensibility ; 
as  a  rational  being,  he  comes  under  reason's  "  autonomy," 
and  is  free.     His  peculiar  ethical  task  is  to  emancipate 


If 

WCtJ 


lit  I 


lln 


i 

n 
If] 


114 

Itf 


if 


! 


»%i 


378 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


THE    PEOBLEM   OF   FREEDOM. 


379 


himself  from  the  necessity  of  the  life  of  sensibility,  and 
to  appropriate  that  freedom  which  belongs  to  him  of 
right  as  a  member  of  the  kingdom  of  pure  reason.  Thus 
that  idea  of  freedom  which  speculatively  is  but  "regu- 
lative "  and  ideal  becomes  practically  "  constitutive  "  and 
real. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  this  theory  does  not  vindicate 
actual  freedom.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  Kant  so  presses  the 
distinction  between  the  phenomenal  and  the  noumenal  as 
to  make  the  distinction  absolute.  In  my  noumenal  nature, 
or  in  myself,  I  am  free ;  in  my  empirical  or  phenomenal 
states,  I  am  not  free,  but  under  the  necessity  of  nature. 
This  is  hardly  better,  as  M.  Fouillee  has  remarked,^  than 
to  tell  a  prisoner  that  outside  his  prison  there  is  freedom, 
and  that  he  has  only  to  think  himself  outside,  to  realise 
that  he  is  free.  We  are  confined  within  the  prison-house 
of  desire  and  passion,  of  sensibility  and  motive  force,  and 
the  only  life  we  know  is  that  of  prisoners.  What  matters 
it  to  us  that  there  is  freedom  if  we  cannot  make  it  our 
own  ?  But  escape  we  cannot,  without  ceasing  to  be  men ; 
our  very  manhood  is  our  prison-house. 

But,  it  may  be  urged,  the  Kantian  freedom  is  the  true 
freedom  after  all,  inasmuch  as,  though  not  actual,  it  is  yet 
the  ideal  or  goal  towards  which  the  moral  man  is  always 
approximating.  But  even  regarded  as  an  ideal,  it  is  but  a 
one-sided  freedom,  as  the  life  of  duty  which  realises  it  is 
but  a  one-sided  life.  For,  according  to  Kant's  view,  man 
is  free  only  in  so  far  as  he  acts  rationally  or  without 
impulse  of  sensibility :  in  so  far  as  he  acts  from  impulse 
or  even  with  impulse,  he  acts  irrationally,  and  is  not  free. 

^  '  L'Evolutiounisme  des  Idees-Forces,'  Introd.  76. 


But  freedom,  if  it  is  to  have  any  moral  significance,  must 
mean  freedom  in  choosing  the  evil  equally  with  the  good ; 
only  such  a  double  freedom  can  be  regarded  as  the  basis 
of  responsibility  or  obligation.  Freedom  is  that  which 
makes  evil  evii,  as  it  is  that  which  makes  good  good. 

If  freedom  is  to  be  of  real  moral  significance,  it  must  be 
realised  in  the  concrete  life  of  motived  activity,  in  the 
apparent  necessity  of  nature,  which  is  thereby  converted 
into  the  mechanism  of   freedom;    not   apart   from   this 
actual  life  of  man,  in  a  life  of  sheer  passionless  reason, 
which  is  not  human  life  as  we  know  it.     By  withdrawing 
it  from  the  sphere  of  nature  and  mechanism,  of  feeling 
and  impulse,  and   constituting  for  it  a  purely  rational 
sphere  of  its  own,  Kant  has  reduced  freedom  to  a  mere 
abstraction.     What  is  left  is  the  form  of  the  moral  life 
without  its  content.    The  content  of  human  freedom  can 
only  be  that  life  of  nature  and  mechanism,  of  feeling  and 
impulse,  which  Kant  excludes  as  irrational.     The  Self  in 
whose  freedom  we  feel  an  interest  because  it  is  our  Self, 
is  the  Self  that  rejoices  and  suffers,  that  is  tempted  and 
falls,  that  agonises  also  and  overcomes,  this  actual  human 
Self  and  not  another— a  Self  of  pure  reason,  which,  if  in- 
deed it  is  the  ideal  Self,  must  remain  for  man,  as  we  know 
him,  a  mere  ideal. 

9    The  Het^elian   interpretation  of   Freedom  seems  to  (2)  lu  He- 

*^  ^  gelian- 

me  to  be  defective  in  two  points,  and,  in  consequence  of  ism,  a  new 

deteriiiin- 

these  defects,  to  give  us,  instead  of  a  real  freedom,  a  new  ism.    (i) 
Determinism.     In  recoil  from  the  absolute  dualism  of  the  the  char- 
Kantian  theory,  Hegelianism  maintains,  first,  the  entire 
immanence  of  the  Self  in  the  process  of  its  experience,  or 


-•I 


380 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM. 


381 


the  identity  of  the  Self  with  the  character ;  and,  secondly, 
the  entire  immanence  of  God  in  the  process  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  therefore  in  that  of  human  life.  Both  positions 
seem  to  me  to  negate  our  moral  Freedom. 

(i)  As  regards  the  identification  of  the  Self  with  its 
character,  we  have  the  following,  among  other,  explicit 
statements  of  the  late  Professor  Green.  "  The  action  is 
as  necessarily  related  to  the  character  and  circumstances 
as  any  event  to  the  sum  of  its  conditions."  ^  "  What  a 
man  now  is  and  does  is  the  result  (to  speak  pleonastically, 
the  necessary  result)  of  what  he  has  been  and  has  done ; "  ^ 
"  he,  being  what  he  is,  and  the  circumstances  being 
what  they  are  at  any  particular  conjuncture,  the  deter- 
mination of  the  will  is  already  given,  just  as  an  effect  is 
given  in  the  sum  of  its  conditions.  The  determination  of 
the  will  might  be  different,  but  only  through  the  man's 
being  different."  ^  Thus  the  identification  of  the  Self  with 
the  character  results  in  a  new  version  of  determinism  no 
less  absolute  than  that  of  the  empiricists  themselves.  The 
"  I "  is  once  more  identified  with  the  "  me  " ;  the  refusal 
to  acknowledge  any  extra  -  empirical  reality  means  the 
denial  of  freedom. 

The  only  way  to  save  that  freedom  would  seem  to  be 
by  maintaining  the  distinction  between  the  Self  and  the 
character,  not  in  the  absolute  or  Kantian  sense,  but  in  the 
sense  that  while  the  Self  is  what  in  its  character  it  appears 
to  be,  it  yet  is  always  more  than  any  such  empirical  mani- 
festation of  it;  that,  while  it  is  immanent  in  its  expe- 
rience, it  also  for  ever  transcends  that  experience.     The 


alternative  is  not,  as  Green  states  it,  between  a  Self  which 
is  identical  with  its  character  and  a  Self  which  stands  out 
of  all  relation  to  its  character,  so  that  "  a  man's  action" 
does  not  "  represent  his  character,  but  an  arbitrary  freak 
of  some  unaccountable  power  of  unmotived  willing,"  ^  and 
that  "  I  could  be  something  to-day  irrespectively  of  what 
I  was  yesterday,  or  something  to-morrow  irrespectively 
of  what  I  am  to-day."  ^     We  may  regard  the  Self  as, 
throu-h  its  character,  standing  in  the  most  intimate  re- 
lation to  its  experience,  and  yet  as  being  always  more  than 
that  experience,  and  in  this  more  containing  the  secret  of 
its  moral  life.      Dr  Martineau  has  happily  expressed  this 
view  by  calling  the  character  a  "  predicate  "  of  the  Self ; 
the  moral  life  might  be  described  as  a  process  of  Self- 
predication.     The  predicates  are  meaningless  without  a 
Self  of  which  they  may  be  predicated— nay,  without  a 
Self  to  predicate  them  of  itself.     As  Professor  Upton  has 
well  put  it  •  "  While  our  character  determines  the  nature 
of  our  temptations,  we  are,  I  believe,  clearly  conscious 
that  it  is  not  the  character,  but  the  Self  loUch  has  the 
character,  to  which  the  ultimate   moral  decision  is  due. 
In  every  moral  crisis  of  a  man's  life  he  rises  in  the  act 
of  moral  choice  above  his  own  character,  envisages  it,  and 
passes  moral  judgment  on  the  springs  of  action  or  desire 
which  he  feels  present  within  him ;  and  it  is  because  a 
man's  true  Self  can  thus  transcend  and  judge  his  own 
character,  that  genuine  moral  freedom  and  moral  respon- 
sibility become  possible  and  actual."  ^     The  freedom  of 
the  moral  life  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  the  original  energy 


'  *  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,'  112. 

3  'Works,' ii.  318. 


2  Ibid.,  113. 


1  '  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,'  113. 

3  '  New  World,'  i.  152. 


2  Ibid.,  115. 


j|;i 


*9 


II 

i 


382 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   FREEDOM. 


383 


(ii)  The  Self 
=God. 


of  a  Self  the  measure  of  whose  activity  is  never  to  be 
found  in  the  history  of  its  past  achievements. 

The  Hegelian  identification  of  the  Self  with  the  char- 
acter leads  us  back  to  determinism,  because,  by  a  kind 
of  irony  of  fate,  it  leads  us  back  to  empiricism  of  the 
most  unmistakable  kind.  The  Self  is  once  more  lost  in 
its  experience,  resolved  into  its  states.  At  most,  the  Self 
is  conceived  as  the  "  principle  of  unity  "  of  its  states,  as  the 
"  form  "  of  its  experience ;  and  even  then  the  unity  is  rather 
a  cognitional  than  an  ethical  unity,  the  essentially  dynam- 
ical character  of  the  moral  life  is  ignored,  the  volitional  is 
once  more  resolved  into  the  intellectual.  What  has  been 
said  above  in  answer  to  the  psychological  view  of  the 
Self  need  not  be  repeated  here  in  answer  to  the  transcen- 
dental denial  of  its  reality  and  activity. 

(ii)  The  Hegelian  doctrine  of  the  immanence  of  God  in 
man  leads  to  the  same  result.  History,  like  the  course  of 
things,  is  a  logical  process,  the  process  of  the  universal 
Eeason ;  in  the  one  case  as  the  other,  "  the  real  is  the 
rational,"  and  "  all  things  follow  from  the  necessity  of  the 
divine  nature."  As  to  the  Self,  it  is  accounted  for  by 
being  referred  to  the  Absolute  Eeality  of  which  it  is  the 
passing  manifestation.  If  the  biological  and  mechanical 
evolutionists,  refusing  to  regard  the  individual  self  as  ulti- 
mate and  self-explaining,  trace  it  to  a  past  beyond  itself, 
and  see  in  it  the  highly  complex  resultant  of  vast  cosmic 
forces,  the  Absolute  Idealist,  seeing  in  the  universe  the 
evolution  of  divine  Reason,  finds  in  the  life  of  the  Self  the 
manifestation  or  reproduction  in  time  of  the  eternal  Self- 
consciousness  of  God.  There  is  only  one  Self — the  uni- 
versal  or   divine;  this   all-embracing   Subject  manifests 


itself  alike  in  the  object  and  in  the  subject  of  human  con- 
sciousness, in  Nature  and  in  man.     Both  are  God,  though 
they   ap:pear    to   be    somewhat    on    their    own    account. 
Obviously,  if  we  are  thus  to  interpret  man  as  only,  like 
Nature,  an  aspect  of  God,  we  must  de-personalise  him ;  it 
is  his  Personality  that  separates,  like  a  "  middle  wall  of 
partition,"  between  man  and  God.     Nor  is  this  conclusion 
shunned.     Personality  is  explained  to  be  mere  "  appear- 
ance " ;  the  Eeality  is  impersonal.     This  is  Mr  Bradley's 
view.     "  But  then  the  soul,  I  must  repeat,  is  itself   not 
ultimate  fact.      It  is  appearance,  and  any  description  of  it 
must  contain  inconsistency."     The  moral  life  is  governed 
by  two  "  incompatible  ideals,"  that  of  self-assertion  and 
that  of  self-sacrifice.     "To  reduce  the   raw  material  of 
one's  nature  to  the  highest  degree  of  system,  and  to  use 
every  element   from   whatever  source  as   a   subordinate 
means  to  this  object,  is  certainly  one  genuine  view  of  good- 
ness.    On  the  other  hand,  to  widen  as  far  as  possible  the 
end  to  be  pursued,  and  to  realise  this  through  the  distrac- 
tion or  the  dissipation  of  one's  individuality,  is  certainly 
also  good.     An  individual  system,  aimed  at  in  one's  self, 
and  again  the  subordination  of  one's  own  development  to 
a  wide-embracing  end,  are  each  an  aspect  of  the  moral 
principle.  .  .  .  And,  however  much  these   must  diverge, 
each  is  morally  good ;  and,  taken  in  the  abstract,  you  can- 
not say  that  one  is  better  than  the  other."  ^     "  Now  that 
this  divergence  ceases,  and  is  brought  together  in  the  end, 
is  most  certain.     For  nothing  is  outside  the  Absolute,  and 
in  the  Absolute  there  is  nothing  imperfect.  ...  In  the 
Absolute  everything  finite  attains  the  perfection  which  it 

1  '  Appearance  and  Reality,'  414,  415. 


11 


384 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


THE    PKOBLEM    OF    FREEDOM. 


385 


seeks ;  but,  upon  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  gain  perfection 
precisely  as  it  seeks  it.  For  .  .  .  the  finite  is  more  or 
less  transmuted,  and,  as  such,  disappears  in  being  accom- 
plished. This  common  destiny  is  assuredly  the  end  of  the 
Good.  The  ends  sought  by  self-assertion  and  self-sacrifice 
are,  each  alike,  unattainable.  The  individual  never  can 
in  himself  become  an  harmonious  system.  And  in  the 
wider  ideal  to  which  he  devotes  himself,  no  matter  how 
thoroughly,  he  never  can  find  complete  self-realisation. 
.  .  .  And,  in  the  complete  gift  and  dissipation  of  his  per- 
sonality he,  as  such,  must  vanish ;  and,  with  that,  the  good 
is,  as  such,  transcended  and  submerged."  ^ 

After  such  a  frank  statement  of  the  full  meaning  of  the 
Hegelian  metaphysic  of  the  Self,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to 
argue  that  it  sacrifices,  with  the  freedom  of  man,  the 
reality  of  his  moral  life.  If  I  am  but  the  vehicle  of  the 
divine  Self-manifestation,  if  my  personality  is  not  real  but 
only  seeming— the  mask  that  hides  the  sole  activity  of 
God—my  freedom  and  my  moral  life  dissolve  together.  It 
is  true  that  God  reveals  himself  in  me  in  another  way 
than  he  does  in  the  world ;  but  my  life  is,  after  all,  only 
his  in  a  fuller  manifestation,  a  higher  stage,  really  as 
necessary  as  any  of  the  lower,  in  the  realisation  of  the 
divme  nature.  Such  a  view  may  conserve  the  freedom  of 
God ;  it  inevitably  invalidates  that  of  man.  If  man  can 
be  said  to  be  free  at  all,  it  is  only  in  so  far  as  he  is  iden- 
tical with  God.  If  it  be  contended  that  just  here  is  found 
our  true  Self-hood,  and  with  it  our  real  freedom,  I  submit 
that  this  view  of  the  Self  means  the  loss  of  Self -hood  in 
any  true  sense  of  the  term,  since  it  means  the  resolution 

^  'Appearance  and  Reality,'  419. 


of  man  and  his  freedom  as  elements  into  the  life  of  God, 
the  single  so-called  "  Self."  Thus  freedom  is  ultimately 
resolved  by  the  Transcendentalists  into  a  higher  necessity, 
as  it  is  resolved  by  the  Naturalists  into  a  lower  necessity : 
by  the  former  it  is  resolved  into  the  necessity  of  God,  as 
by  the  latter  it  is  resolved  into  the  necessity  of  Nature. 
Hegelianism,  like  Spinozism,  has  no  place  for  the  Person- 
ality of  man,  and  his  proper  life  as  man.  Equally  with 
Naturalism,  such  an  Absolute  Idealism  makes  of  man  a 
mere  term  in 'the  necessary  evolution  of  the  universe,  a 
term  which,  though  higher,  is  no  less  necessary  in  its 
sequence  than  the  lower  terms  of  the  evolution.  It  may 
be  that  the  doctrine  is  true,  and  that  "necessity  is  the 
true  freedom."  But  let  us  understand  that  the  freedom 
belongs  to  God,  the  necessity  to  man ;  the  freedom  to  the 
Whole,  the  necessity  to  the  parts. 

Such  a  Transcendentalism,  equally  with  Naturalism, 
also  and  at  the  same  time  invalidates  the  distinction  be- 
tween good  and  evil,  resolving  apparent  evil  into  real 
good,  and  seeing  things  as,  in  their  ultimate  "reality," 
"  all  very  good."  Or  rather,  both  good  and  evil  are  resolved 
into  a  Tertiuiii  Quid.  "  Goodness  [and,  of  course,  badness 
too]  is  an  appearance,  it  is  phenomenal,  and  therefore  self- 
contradictory."  1  "  Goodness  is  a  subordinate  and,  there- 
fore, a  self-contradictory  aspect  of  the  universe."  ^  Such 
distinctions  are  fictions  of  our  own  abstraction,  mere 
"  entia  imaginationis,"  as  Spinoza  called  them,  the  results 
of  a  partial  knowledge,  and  destined,  therefore,  to  disap- 
pear from  the  standpoint  of  the  Whole. 

But  man,  as  an  ethical  being,  is  part  of  the  universe, 

1  Bradley,  'Appearance  and  Reality,'  419.  2  i^jd.,  420. 

2b 


i 
i 


P- 


386 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


I. 


and  as  a  part,  he  must  be  explained,  not  explained  away. 
To  interpret  his  moral  life  as  mere  "  appearance,"  to  de- 
personalise and  thus  to  de-moralise  him,  is  to  explain 
away  his  characteristic  being.  This  pantheistic  resolu- 
tion of  man  into  God  is  too  rapid  an  explanation ;  the 
unity  thus  reached  cannot  be  the  true  unity,  since  it 
negates,  instead  of  explaining,  the  facts  in  question. 
Such  an  unethical  unification  might  conceivably  be  a 
sufficient  interpretation  of  Nature,  and  of  man  in  so  far 
as  he  is  a  natural  being,  and  even  in  so  far  as  he  is  an 
intellectual  being;  it  is  not  a  sufficient  interpretation  of 
man  as  man,  or  in  his  moral  being.  The  reality  of  the 
moral  life  is  bound  up  with  the  reality  of  human  freedom, 
and  the  reality  of  freedom  with  the  integrity  of  the  moral 
personality.  If  I  am  a  person,  an  "  Ego  on  my  own 
account,"  I  am  free  ;  if  I  am  not  such  a  person  or  Ego, 
I  am  not  free. 


Resulting 
conception 
of  Free- 
dom. 


10.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  only  possible  vindi- 
cation of  Freedom  is  to  take  our  stand  on  the  moral  Self 
or  Personality,  as  itself  the  heart  and  centre  of  the  ethical 
life,  the  key  to  the  moral  situation.  The  integrity  of 
moral  Personality  may  be  tampered  with,  as  we  have 
found,  in  two  ways.  Man  may  be  de-personalised  either 
into  Nature  or  into  God.  And  although  the  Naturalistic 
resolution  may  be  the  favourite  course  of  contemporary 
determinism,  the  greater  danger  lies  perhaps  in  the  other 
direction ;  it  was  here  that  the  older  determinists  like 
Edwards  waged  the  keenest  warfare.  The  relation  of  man 
as  a  free  moral  personality  to  God  is  even  more  difficult 
to  conceive  than  his  relation  to  Nature;  theology  has 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM. 


387 


more  perils   for  human  freedom   than    cosmology.     To 
think  of  God  as  all  in  all,  and  yet  to  retain  our  hold 
on  human  freedom  or  personality,— that  is  the  real  meta- 
physical difficulty.     To  see  in  our  own  personality  a  mere 
appearance  behind  which  is  God,  is  to  destroy  the  reality 
of   the  moral  life;    yet  when  we  try  to  think  of  that 
life   from   the    divine    standpoint,    the    difficulty   is    to 
understand  its  reality.      But,  even  though  the  ultimate 
reconciliation  of  divine  and  human  Personality  may  be 
still  beyond  us,  I  do  not  see  how  either  conception  can 
be  given  up,  whether  for  a  religious  Mysticism  or  for  an 
absolute  philosophical  Idealism.     The  Mystic  has  always 
striven  to  reach  the  God-consciousness  throuijh  the  ne^^a- 
tion   of   Self-consciousness;   it   must  rather   be   reached 
through   the    deepening   and   enriching,  the   infinite   ex- 
pansion, of   Self-consciousness.      Even   for   metaphysics, 
Personality  or   Self-consciousness  would  seem  to  be  the 
ultimate   category.     For,   after  all,  the    chief  guarantee 
of  a  worthy  view  of  God  is  a  worthy  view  of  man.     To 
maintain  the  reality  of  the  moral  life  must  give  us  in  the 
end  a  higher  view  of  God,  as  well  as  enable  us  to  conceive 
the  possibility  of  a  higher  union  with  Him— the  union 
and  communion  not  only  of  thought  with  Thought,  but  of 
will  with  Will.     It  is  through  the  conviction  of  his  own 
superiority  to  Nature,  of  his  own  essential  dignity  and 
independence  as  a  moral  person,  that  man  reaches  the 
conception  of  One   infinitely  greater  than  himself.      To 
resolve  the  integrity  of  his  personality  even  into   that 
of  God,  would  be  to  negate  the  divine   greatness   itself, 
by   invalidating   the   conception   through   which   it   was 
jeached      We    must,    indeed,    think    of    our    life    and 


I.I 


388 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


k 


m 


destiny,  as  like  the  course  and  destiny  of  the  worlds, 
ultimately  in  God's  hands,  and  not  in  our  own.  If 
man  is  an  "  imperium,"  he  is  only  an  "  imperium 
in  imperio."  If  God  has,  in  a  sense,  "vacated"  the 
sphere  of  human  activity,  he  still  rules  man's  destiny, 
and  can  turn  his  evil  into  good.  The  classical  concep- 
tion of  Fate  and  the  Christian  thouoht  of  a  divine  Provi- 

o 

dence  have  high  metaphysical  warrant.  All  human  ex- 
perience 

*'  Should  teach  us 
There's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Rough-hew  them  how  we  will." 

Yet  man  cannot  rec^ard  himself  as  a  mere  instrument  in 
the  divine  hands,  a  passive  vehicle  of  the  energy  of  God. 
Activity  (ivepyeLo)  is  the  category  of  his  life  as  man,  and 
his  highest  conception  of  his  relation  to  God  is  that  of 
Co-operation  (avvepyLo).  He  must  regard  himself  as  a 
fellow-worker  even  with  God.  This  is  his  hidi  human 
birthright,  which  he  may  not  sell. 


389 


CHAPTEE    II. 


ii^ 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


1.  The  demand  that  we  shall  be  "  positive,"  "  scientific,"  or 
un-metaphysical  in  our  thinking,  reaches  its  climax  when 
we  approach  the  problem  of  the  divine  government  of  the 
world.  If  a  scientific  theory  of  morals  is  not  based  upon 
the  doctrine  of  moral  Freedom,  still  less  does  it  rest,  we 
are  told,  upon  a  doctrine  of  God ;  if  a  rational  psychology 
is  illegitimate,  still  more  obviously  so  is  a  rational  theol- 
ogy :  if  metaphysics  in  general  is  ruled  out  as  unscientific, 
then  theology,  which  is  metaphysics  run  wild,  is  a  forti- 
ori condemned.  The  command,  "Be  un-metaphysical" 
is— more  closely  interpreted — the  command  "  Be  un-theo- 
logical."  The  entire  argument  of  contemporary  Agnos- 
ticism and  Positivism  is  to  the  effect  that  God  is  either 
the  unknown  and  unknowable,  or  the  most  unreal  of  all 
abstractions,  the  merest  fiction  of  the  human  imagination. 
The  phenomenal  alone  is  real  and  intelligible.  The  noume- 
nal  is  either  unreal,  or,  if  real,  unintelligible.     Let  us  be 

content,   then,   with  the  relative  and  phenomenal, the 

"  positive  "  reality  of  experience,  whether  that  experience 
be  intellectual  or  moral.     Wliy  continue  to  weary  our- 


The  neces- 
sity of  the 
theological 
question. 


390 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


391 


selves  with  beating  our  wings  against  the  cage?  Why 
seek  to  burst  the  bars  of  our  intellectual  prison-house? 
There  is  abundant  room  and  breathing-space  within  the 
prison- walls  which  so  inexorably  shut  us  in.  Outside 
the  w^alls  of  experience  there  is  nothing,  or,  at  least, 
nothing  for  us;  within  is  contained  all  the  treasure 
which  we  had  vainly  sought  without. 

Yet  we  cannot  think  of  the  moral  life  in  this  way. 
The  foundation  of  this  human  experience  lies  deep  in 
the  unphenomenal  —  the  unphenomenal  Self  and  the 
unphenomenal  God.  Either  to  refuse  us  any  access  to 
the  unphenomenal,  or  to  deny  its  existence,  is  to  lose 
the  true  significance  of  the  phenomenal,  to  misunderstand 
that  moral  experience  which  we  are  seeking  to  interpret. 
Xay,  we  cannot  be  unmetaphysical  and  untheological, 
merely  "  positive  "  or  scientific.  Even  the  man  of  science 
does  not  limit  himself  to  "  the  facts,"  to  "  what  he  sees," 
to  mere  occurrences  or  happenings.  Science,  not  less  than 
philosophy,  is  "  the  thinking  view  of  things " ;  what  the 
man  of  science  seeks  to  apprehend  is  the  meaning  of  the 
facts.  And  the  philosopher  is  ambitious  to  gather  from 
the  hints  of  science  the  total  meaning  of  the  facts.  The 
metaphysician  is,  therefore,  no  more  unscientific  than  the 
man  of  science  is  unmetaphysical.  Where  science  seeks 
to  think  the  facts,  philosophy  seeks  to  think  them  out. 
Metaphysics,  we  are  told,  is  "  a  leap  in  the  dark."  But 
even  the  man  of  science  makes  his  "  leap  in  the  dark,"  his 
leap  from  the  light  of  the  known  to  the  darkness  of  the 
unknown.  It  is  only  by  such  venturesomeness  that  the 
licrht  of  knowledore  is  let  into  the  darkness  of  the  unknown 
(but  not  unknowable).    Why  should  a  limit  be  put  to  this 


speculative  courage,  which  is  at  the  root  of  all  intellectual 
progress  ?  Why  should  not  the  metaphysician  be  allowed 
to  make  his  bolder  leap  into  the  deeper  darkness  ?  The 
darkness  is  thick  indeed,  but  not  therefore  impenetrable. 
At  any  rate,  "  it  is  vain,"  as  Kant  says,  "  to  profess  in- 
difference to  those  questions  to  which  the  mind  of  man 
can  never  really  be  indifferent."  Of  these  "  not  indiffer- 
ent "  questions,  the  supreme  is  the  question  of  God,  of  his 
relation  to  the.  world  and  to  our  human  life  and  destiny. 

The  agnostics  invite  us  to  follow  with  them  the  well- 
trodden  paths  of  moral  and  religious  faith,  of  practical  or 
ethical  belief.  Indeed  the  deepest  motive  of  modern 
ac^nosticism,  as  it  originated  in  Kant,  was  the  preserva- 
tion  of  such  moral  faith,  the  defence  of  ethical  and  re- 
ligious Eeality,  as  unknowable,  from  rationalistic  dissolu- 
tion. The  agnostic  is  not  generally  content,  with  Spencer, 
to  celebrate  the  ''Unknown  and  Unknowable,"  or,  with 
Hamilton  and  Mansel,  to  proclaim  the  inspiration  that 
comes  of  "  mystery,"  to  glory  in  the  "  imbecility  "  of  the 
human  mind  and  the  "  relativity "  of  all  its  knowledge. 
He  is  apt  to  insist,  with  Locke  and  Kant— nay,  with 
Hamilton  and  Spencer  themselves— on  the  rights  of  the 
ethical  and  religious  spirit,  and  its  independence  of  the 
intellectual  or  scientific  understanding.  The  interest  of 
the  former,  he  contends,  is  practical,  not  theoretical ;  its 
sphere  is  not  thought,  but  life.  Its  instrument  is  the 
creative  imagination;  its  atmosphere  is  not  the  "dry 
light "  of  the  intellect,  but  the  warmth  and  glow  of  the 
emotional  nature,  and  the  moving  energy  of  the  will. 
It  is  with  the  appreciation  of  true  culture  and  of  delicate 
moral  and  religious  susceptibility,  that  this  acknowledg- 


392 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


ment  is  made.  It  is  made  in  slightly  different  ways  by 
Lange  and  Tyndall,  no  less  fully  than  by  Huxley  and 
Spencer.  To  speak  of  such  writers  as  "atheistic"  or 
"  irreligious  "  is  most  unfair  and  most  misleading.  It  is 
not  the  heart,  but  the  head,  that  is  at  fault.  Their  view 
of  human  nature  is  both  broad  and  deep ;  what  it  wants 
is  losjical  clearness  and  coherence. 

That  there  is  a  moral,  as  well  as  an  intellectual  reality, 
and  that  the  moral  life,  as  such,  is  independent  of  any 
theoretical  understanding  of  it,  is  surely  true  and  im- 
portant. But  that  this  independence  is  absolute  and 
ultimate  we  cannot  believe.  Unless  we  are  sceptics,  and 
have  only  Hume's  blind  "  belief "  of  custom,  we  cannot  say 
that.  The  Kantian  agnostic  is  right  when  he  recognises 
a  spiritual  element  in  man,  and  concedes  its  claim  to  an 
appropriate  life.  Man  is  an  ethical,  as  w^ell  as  an  in- 
tellectual being ;  the  will  and  emotions  demand  a  sphere 
of  their  own.  But  if  the  world  of  man's  moral  and 
religious  life  is  the  mere  projection  of  the  emotional 
imagination,  it  is  a  world  in  which  that  life  cannot 
continue  to  live.  ''If  there  is  no  God,  we  must  make 
one ; "  but  a  God  of  our  own  making  is  no  God.  If  the 
moral  and  religious  ideal  is  a  mere  ideal,  the  shadow 
cast  by  the  actual  in  the  sunshine  of  the  human  imagin- 
ation ;  if  the  ideal  is  not  also  in  very  truth  the  real ; 
if  the  good  is  not  also  the  true, — the  reality  of  man's 
spiritual  life  is  destroyed,  and  its  foundations  are  sapped. 
Man  cannot  permanently  live  on  fictions;  the  insight 
that  his  deepest  life  is  founded  on  "the  baseless  fabric 
of  a  vision"  must  bring  with  it,  sooner  or  later,  the 
downfall  of  the  life  thus  undermined.     Agnosticism,  if  it 


THE    PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


393 


is  true,  must  carry  with  it  the  ultimate  disappearance  of 
religion,  and,  with  religion,  of  all  morality  higher  than 
utility.  For  we  cannot  permanently  separate  the  ethical 
and  intellectual  man.  His  nature  and  life  are  one,  single, 
indissolubly  bound  together;  and  ultimately  he  must 
demand  an  intellectual  justification  of  his  ethical  and 
religious  life,  a  theory  of  it  as  well  as  of  the  world  of 
nature.  The  "need  of  ethical  harmony"  must  make 
itself  felt;  a  moral  being  demands  a  moral  "environ- 
ment "  or  "  sphere."  The  attempt  to  divorce  emotion  and 
activity  from  knowledge  is  a  psychological  error  of  a 
glaring  kind.  Our  life  is  one,  as  our  nature  is  one.  We 
cannot  live  in  sections,  or  in  faculties.  Temporarily  and 
in  the  individual,  an  approximation  to  such  a  divorce 
may  be  possible,  but  not  permanently  or  in  the  race. 
The  practical  life  is  connected,  in  a  rational  being,  with 
the  theoretical ;  we  cannot  be  permanently  illogical,  either 
in  morality  or  religion.  The  postulate  of  man's  spiritual 
life  is  the  harmony  of  Nature  and  spirit,  or  the  spiritual 
constitution  of  the  universe. 

2.  If  we  ask,  then.  Where  is  the  source  of  ethical  a^os-^^^ 
enthusiasm  to  be  found  ?  the  answer  of  the  "  scientific "  Positivism, 
or  unmetaphysical  philosopher  is.  Either  in  the  Unknow- 
able Absolute,  or  in  that  phenomenal  moral  reality  which 
we  know,— in  the  ethical  life  of  Humanity.  The  former  is 
the  answer  of  Agnosticism,  the  latter  is  that  of  Positivism. 
The  first  answer  is  purely  negative  and  does  not  carry  as 
far.  If  it  has  any  positive  meaning,  it  is  simply  that 
the  real  is  not  the  phenomenal,  that  "phenomena"  or 
"  facts  "  are  but "  shows  "  of  a  deeper  Keality.    It  is  indeed 


i.**: 


394 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


a  most  important  truth,  that  the  universe  is  not  a  mere 
"  flux  "  or  process,  a  "  stream  of  tendency  "  which  tends  no 
whither,  but  that  it  has  an  abiding  meaning.  But  no 
more  is  the  universe  a  sphinx,  on  whose  dead  expres- 
sionless face  we  must  for  ever  gaze  without  a  suggestion 
of  a  solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  earth.  If  the  mean- 
ing of  things  is  one  which  we  can  never  hope  in  any 
measure  to  decipher,  then  for  us  there  might  as  well  be 
no  meaning  at  all.  And  as  for  the  needed  moral  inspira- 
tion, an  unhiovM  quantity  can  hardly  be  the  source  of 
inspiration.  One  can  hardly  wonder  at  Mr  Harrison's 
travesty  of  the  agnostic's  prayer  to  his  Unknown  God: 
"  0  ojnth  love  us,  help  us,  make  us  one  with  thee ! " 

If  the  Agnostic  sends  us  to  an  Unknown  and  Unknow- 
able  Absolute  for  the  inspiration  of  our  moral  life,  the 
Positivist  bids  us  see  in  that  never-ceasing  human  proces- 
sion of  which  we  ourselves  form  such  a  humble  part  the 
object  of  reverent  adoration,  and  draw  from  the  sight 
the  moral  inspiration  which  we  need.  Comte  and  his 
followers  would  have  us,  in  this  the  day  of  our  race's 
intellectual  majority,  dethrone  the  usurper  Gods  of  our 
theological  and  metaphysical  "minority,"  and  place  on 
the  throne  the  true  and  only  rightful  God— the  Grand 
tltre  of  Humanity  itself.  In  our  weakness,  we  may  cast 
ourselves  upon  its  greater  strength;  in  our  foolishness, 
upon  its  deeper  wisdom ;  in  our  sin  and  error,  upon  its 
less  erring  righteousness.  Nay,  we  can  pray  to  this 
"  mighty  mother "  of  our  being ;  we  are  her  children,  and 
she  is  able  to  sustain  us.  Nor  need  we  stop  short  of 
worship,  for  the  Grand  Mre  is  infinitely  greater  than 
we,  and  contains  all  our  greatness  in  itself.     And  if  we 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


395 


ask  for  a  "moral  dynamic,"  for  an  energy  of  goodness 
which  shall  make  the  good  life,  otherwise  so  hard  or 
even  impossible,  a  possibility  and  a  joy  to  us,  where  shall 
we  find  such  an  abiding  and  abundant  source  of  moral 
inspiration  as  in  the  "  enthusiasm  of  Humanity  "  ?  ^  Tlurc 
is  a  motive-force  strong  enough  to  carry  us  steadily  for- 
ward in  all  good  living,  deep  enough  to  touch  the  very 
springs  of  conduct,  enduring  enough  to  outlast  all  human 
strivings  and  activities. 

It  would  be  ungrateful  to  deny  or  to  minimise   the 
importance  of  this  truth— to  deny  or  to  belittle  the  fact 
of  the  solidarity  of  the  race,  and  the  capital  importance 
of  that  fact  for  human  conduct.     That  we  are  not  separate 
from  our  brethren,  but  members  one  of  another,  that  in 
our  deepest  interests  and  best  endeavours  we  are  one  with 
our  fellows,  and  that  in  the  realisation  of  that  fellowship 
there  is  a  deep  moral  inspiration— all  this  is  true  and  most 
important.     But  in  order  that  we  may  find  in  humanity 
all  the  inspiration  that  we  need— in  order  that  it  may 
become  to  us  a  Grand  ttre,  which  shall  claim  our  un- 
wavering trust  and   reverence— we  must  abstract   from 
the  concrete  and  actual  humanity  of  our  experience,  from 
the  real  men  and  women  whom  we  know,  and  know  to  be 
imperfect,  to  have  failings  as  well  as  virtues  and  excel- 
lences of  character,  whom  we  love  even  in  their  weakness, 
and  perhaps  even  because  of  it,  but  whom  we  cannot  wor- 
ship, or  regard  as  the  complete  embodiment  of  the  moral 
ideal.     Not  nun,  but  man,  then,  must  be  the  object  of  our 
worship  and  the  source  of  our  ethical  enthusiasm ;  not  the 
members  of  the  race,  but  the  race  itself,  must  be  our  Grand 
^tre.    What  is  this  but  to  set  up,  on  the  throne  vacated 


396 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


by  the  fictitious  deity  of  metaphysical  abstraction,  a  new 
fiction,  the  latest  product  of  "  hypostatisation,"  the  last 
relic  of  scholastic  "  realism,"  a  "  great  being,"  which  de- 
rives its  greatness  and  worshipfulness  from  the  elimination 
of  those  characteristics  which  alone  make  it  real  and 
actual  ?  The  race  consists  of  men  and  women,  of  moral 
individuals;  and  the  moral  individual  is  never  quite 
worshipful.  "  Humanity  "  is  only  a  collective  or  generic 
term;  it  describes  the  common  nature  of  its  individual 
members,  it  does  not  denote  a  separate  being,  or  the 
existence  of  that  common  nature,  apart  from  the  individ- 
uals who  share  it.  A  touch  of  logic,  or,  at  any  rate,  of 
that  "  metaphysic  "  which  we  are  supposed  to  have  out- 
grown, but  which  we  cannot  afford  to  outgrow,  is  enough 
to  reveal  the  unreality  and  ghostliness  of  the  positivist 
Grand  Eire. 

The  Positivist  Eeligion  of  Humanity  is,  it  seems  to  me, 
a  misstatement  of  an  all-important  truth — viz.,  that  God 
is  to  be  found  in  man  in  a  sense  in  which  he  is  not  to  be 
found  in  Mature,  that  he  is  to  be  found  in  man  as  man, 
as  an  ethical  and  non-natural  being.  But  this  very  differ- 
entiation of  man  from  Mature,  on  which  the  Eeligion  of 
Humanity  rests,  must  be  vindicated,  and  its  vindication 
must  be  metaphysical.  Such  an  interpretation  of  human 
life  implies  an  idealisation  of  man,  the  discovery  in  his 
phenomenal  life  of  an  ideal  meaning  which  gives  it  the 
unique  value  attributed  to  it.  Man  is  divine,  let  us 
admit ;  but  it  is  this  divinity  of  man  that  has  chiefly  to 
be  accounted  for.  What  is  the  Fountain  of  these  welling 
springs  of  divinity  in  man  ?  Unless  behind  your  fellow 
and  yourself,  and  in  both,  you  see  God,  you  will  not  catch 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


397 


the  "enthusiasm  of  Humanity."  The  true  Enthusiasm 
for  Humanity  is  an  enthusiasm  for  God.  When  in  the 
good  man  we  see  the  "  image  of  God,"  when  behind  all 
the  shortcomings  of  actual  goodness  we  see  the  infinite 
divine  potentiality  of  Good,  we  can  mingle  reverence 
with  our  human  love,  and  hope  with  our  pity  and  regret. 
But  the  roots  of  our  reverence  and  our  hope  are  deep 
in  the  Absolute  Goodness  that  we  see  reflected  in  the 
human  as  in  n  mirror.  If  this  human  goodness  is  the 
original,  and  reflects  not  a  higher  and  more  perfect  than 
itself,  its  power  to  stimulate  the  good  life  is  incalculably 
diminished. 

3.  I  have  devoted  so  much  attention  to  Agnosticism  and  Natural- 
Positivism,  because  these  are  the  contemporary  equivalents 
of  that  anti-theological  spirit  which,  till  quite  recently, 
called  itself  Materialism  or  Atheism.     The  general  atti- 
tude of  mind  common  to  the  earlier  and  the  later  form 
of  thought  might  be  described  as  Naturalism  or  Phenom- 
enalism, as  opposed  to  Supernaturalism  or  Noumenalism. 
It  adopts  a  mechanical  or  materialistic  explanation,  rather 
than  a  teleological  or  idealistic.      But   the   absolute  or 
ontological  materialism  of  former  times  has   been   sup- 
planted by  the  relative  or  "  scientific  "  materialism  of  the 
Agnostics.     The  Agnostic  denies  the  possibility  of  meta- 
physical knowledge  in  general,  and  of  a  "metaphysic  of 
ethics  "  in  particular.     All  knowledge  being  "  positive  "  or 
scientific,  and  the  ultimate  positive  reality  being  physical 
energy,  it  follows  that  all  "  explanation,"  even  of  psychi- 
cal and  ethical  phenomena,  is  in  terms  of  this  energy, 
in  mechanical  and  material  terms.     In  spite  of  his  pro- 


Liil 


398 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


399 


fessed  impartiality  between  matter  and  mind,  Spencer 
does  not  hesitate  to  offer  such  a  materialistic  or  natural- 
istic interpretation  of  the  moral  life.  And  even  when  the 
attempt  is  not  made  to  explain  the  moral  life  in  terms  of 
mechanism,  the  possibility  of  any  other  explanation  is 
denied,  and  we  are  asked  to  be  simply  "agnostic"  or 
"  positive "  in  our  attitude  to  it.  This  is  the  position 
of  Professor  Huxley  in  his  notable  Romanes  Lecture  on 
*  Evolution  and  Ethics,'  a  brilliant  statement  of  the  con- 
sistent and  characteristic  Ethics  of  Agnosticism. 

What,  then,  are  we  offered  in  the  name  of  scientific 
explanation,  and  as  a  substitute  for  metaphysical  specula- 
tion ?  A  naturalistic  scheme  of  morality,  the  correlation 
of  the  ethical  with  the  physical  process,  the  incorporation 
of  man,  his  virtue  and  his  vice,  his  defects  and  his  failures, 
his  ideals  and  attainments,  as  a  term  in  the  process  of 
cosmical  evolution.  We  are  offered,  in  short,  a  new 
version  of  the  "  Ethics  of  Naturalism  "  far  superior  to  the 
old  Utilitarian  version,  superior  because  so  much  more 
scientific.  Man,  like  all  other  animals,  like  all  other 
beings,  is  the  creature  of  his  conditions ;  his  life  is  pro- 
gressively defined  by  adjustment  to  them ;  his  goodness 
is  simply  that  which  has  given  or  gives  him  the  advan- 
tage in  the  universal  struggle  for  existence,  and  has 
enabled  him  to  survive.  The  ethical  category  is  one 
with  the  physical ;  the  "  best "  is  only  the  "  fittest."  The 
ideal  is  the  shadow  of  the  actual,  and  the  distinction 
arises  from  the  very  nature  of  evolution  as  a  process, 
as  the  becoming  of  that  which  is  not  yet  but  shall  be. 
Thus  would  the  Evolutionist  in  Ethics  "naturalise  the 
moral  man,"  account  for  him   and  even  for  his  ideals 


by  reference  to  that  Nature  of  which  he  forms  a  part, 
and  make  the  "  ethical  process  "  only  a  later  stage  of  the 
''  cosmical  process."  Thus  for  God  we  are  asked  to  sub- 
stitute Nature,  and  in  "  the  ways  of  the  (physical)  cosmos 
to  find  a  sufficient  sanction  for  morality."  Where  is  the 
need  of  God,  whether  for  moral  authority  or  for  moral 
government,  when  Nature  is  so  profoundly  ethical,  so 
scrupulously  discriminating  in  her  consideration  for  the 
good,  and  in  her  condemnation  of  the  evil ;  when  goodness 
itself  is  but  the  ripe  fruit  of  Nature's  processes,  and  evil, 
truly  interpreted,  only  goodness  misunderstood,  or  good- 
ness in  the  making  ? 

But,  as  we  have  learned  to  know  Nature  better,  better  to 
understand  the  ways  of  the  physical  cosmos,  we  have  found 
that  these  ways  are  by  no  means  ways  of  righteousness. 
The  doctrine  of  Evolution  has  itself  made  it  infin- 
itely more  difficult  for  us  than  it  was  for  the  Stoics  to 
unify  the  ethical  and  the  "  cosmic  process."  It  is  one  of 
the  keenest  living  students  of  Nature,  as  well  as  one 
of  the  keenest  thinkers  of  our  time.  Professor  Hux- 
ley, who  has  stated  this  difficulty  in  the  most  emphatic 
terms,  who  has  confessed  in  the  fullest  way  the  failure  of 
the  scientific  effort  "  to  make  existence  intelligible  and  to 
bring  the  order  of  things  into  harmony  with  the  moral 
sense  of  man,"  ^  and  who  speaks  of  "  the  unfathomable 
injustice  of  the  nature  of  things."  ^  He  has  reminded 
us  how  ancient  the  problem  is,  and  how  ancient  the 
confession  of  man's  inability  to  solve  it,  how  "by  the 
Tiber,  as  by  the  Ganges,  ethical  man  admits  that  the 
cosmos  is  too  strong  for  him,"  how  the  roots  of  pessimism 

1  '  Evolution  and  Ethics,'  8.  -  Ibid.,  12. 


i  '1 

H 


400 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


401 


are  to  be  sought  for  in  this  contradiction,  how  "  social  pro- 
gress means  a  checking  of  the  cosmic  process  at  every 
step,  and  the  substitution  for  it  of  another,  which  may  be 
called  the  ethical  process,  the  end  of  which  is  not  the 
survival  of  those  who  may  happen  to  be  the  fittest,  in 
respect  of  the  whole  of  the  conditions  which  exist,  but 
of  those  who  are  ethically  the  best;"i  how  "the  prac- 
tice of  that  which  is  ethically  the  best— what  we  call 
aoodness  or  virtue — involves  a  course  of  conduct  which, 
in  all  respects,  is  opposed  to  that  which  leads  to  success  m 
the  cosmic  struggle  for  existence  ; "  how  the  history  of 
civilisation  is  the  record  of  "  the  steps  by  which  men  have 
succeeded  in  building  up  an  artificial  world  within  the 
cosmos  ; "  and  how  Nature's  "  moral  indifference  "  culmi- 
nates in  her  undoing  of  that  moral  creation  which  had 
seemed  her  fairest  work ;  how  she,  for  whom  there  is  no 
"  best "  and  "  worst,"  and  for  whom  the  "  fittest  "  is  only 
the  "ablest,"  will  yet  undo  her  own  work,  and  man's 
resistance  to  her  mighty  power  will  avail  him  nothing  to 
"  arrest  the  procession  of  the  great  year." 

Perhaps  Professor  Huxley  goes  too  far  when  he  says 
that  "  the  cosmic  process  bears  no  sort  of  relation  to  the 
ethical,"  but  he  has  at  any  rate  stated  clearly  the  issue  at 
stake— viz.,  the  question  of  the  legitimacy  of  the  identifi- 
cation of  the  ethical  process  with  the  process  of  the  physi- 
cal cosmos,  the  identification  of  "  the  power  that  makes 
for  righteousness  "  with  the  necessity  of  natural  evolution. 
If,  as  I  have  contended,  a  Naturalistic  explanation  of  the 
moral  Ideal  is  impossible,  if  that  Ideal  has  another  and 
hic^her  certificate  of  birth  to  show,  then  we   need   not 

o 

1  '  Evolution  and  Ethics,'  33. 


wonder  that  Nature  should  prove  an  insufficient  sphere 
for  the  moral  life,  and  that  we  should  fail  to  harmonise 
the  order  of  nature  with  the  order  of  morality.     If  man  is 
not  part  of  nature,  but  disparate  from  nature,  then  his 
life  and  nature's  may  well  conflict  in  the  lines  of  their 
development.    If  we  acknowledge  such  a  conflict,  we  may 
either  be  candidly  agnostic,  and,  regarding  physical  ex- 
planation as  the  only  explanation,  may  say  that  moral- 
ity, just  because  it  is  undeniably  different  from  nature, 
is  inexplicable ;  or  we  may  seek  for  another  explanation 
of  it,  and  try  to  answer  Mr  Spencer's  question :  "  If  the 
ethical  man  is  not  a  product  of  the  cosmic  process,  what 
is  he  a  product  of  ? "  ^     Does  not  the  very  insufficiency  of 
Naturalism  necessitate — unless  we  are  to  remain  agnostic 
— a   supernatural    or   transcendental   view  of  morality  ? 
Does  not  the  non-moral  character  of  Nature  necessitate 
a  moral  government  of  man's  life  higher  than  the  govern- 
ment of  Nature, — a  discipline,  retribution,  and  reward  that 
shall  excel  hers  in  justice,  insight,  and  discrimination  ? 
Mr  Huxley's  lecture,  with  its  emphatic,  almost  passionate, 
assertion  of  the  dualism  of  nature  and  morality,  with  its 
absolute  refusal  to  merge  the  latter  in  the  former,  is  itself 
a  fine  demonstration  of  the  impossibility  of  metaphysical 
indifference ;  the  profound  ethical  faith  which  it  expresses 
is  the  best  evidence  of  the  author's  superiority  to  his  creed, 
the  best   proof  that   agnosticism  cannot  be,  for  such  a 
mind,  a  final  resting-place.     For  the  mere  assertion  of  the 
dualism  and  opposition  of  the  ethical  and  the  cosmical 
process  is  not  the  whole  case.     That  dualism  and  opposi- 
tion raise  the  further  question  of  the  possibility  of  their 

^  'Athenoeum,'  August  5,  1893. 

2c 


MSl 


Man  and 
Nature. 


402  METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 

reconciliation.  As  one  of  Professor  Huxley's  reviewers 
said  •  "  The  crux  of  the  theory  lies  in  the  answer  to  the 
question  whether  the  ethical  process,  if  in  reality  opposed 
alto-ether  to  the  cosmical  process,  is  or  is  not  a  part  ot 
the^cosmical  process;  and  if  not,  what  account  can  be 
aiven  of  its  origin.  In  what  way  is  it  possible,  in  what 
way  is  it  conceivable,  that  that  should  arise  within  the 
cosmical  process  which,  in  Mr  Huxley's  comprehensive 
phrase, '  is  in  all  respects  opposed '  to  its  working  ? 

4   The  dualism  of  Nature  and  morality  raises  for  us 
the  question  whether  we  must  not  postulate  for  man  as  a 
moral  being  another,  and  a  higher,  environment  or  sphere 
than  Nature.    The  fact  that  the  physical  scheme  is  ,wt 
the  ethical  scheme,  renders  necessary,  for  the  justification 
and  fulfilment  of  morality,  a  moral  theology,  a  scheme  of 
moral  cvovernment  which  shall  right  the  wrongs  of  the 
physical  government  of  the  universe.     The  fact  of  opposi- 
tion between  nature  and  spirit,  the  fact  that  man's  true 
life  has  to  be  lived  in  a  foreign  element,  that  the  power 
which  works  in  the  physical  cosmos  is  not  a  "  power  which 
makes   for  righteousness "  or  a  power  which  cares  for 
righteousness,-the  fact  of  "  these  hindrances  and  antip- 
athies of  the  actual,"  the  indubitable  and  baffling  fact  of 
this  errand  antinomy,  forces  us  beyond  the  actual  physical 
universe  and  its  order,  to  seek  in  a  higher  world  and  a 
different   order   the   explanation  and   fulfilment  of  our 
moral  life.     Intellectually,  we  might  find  ourselves   at 
home  in  Nature,  for  her  order  seems  the  reflection  of  our 
own  intelligence.     But  morally,  she  answers  not  to  the 

1  'Athenaeum,'  July  22,  1893. 


THE    PKOBLEM    OF    GOD. 


403 


human  spirit's  questionings  and  cravings;  rather,  she 
seems  to  contradict  and  despise  them.  She  knows  her 
own  children,  and  answers  their  cry.  But  man  she  knows 
not,  and  disclaims  :  for,  in  his  deepest  being,  he  is  no  child 
of  hers.  As  his  certificate  of  birth  is  higher,  so  is  his  true 
life  and  citizenship  found  in  a  higher  world.  Thus  there 
comes  inevitably  to  the  human  spirit  the  demand  for 
God,  to  untie  the  knot  of  human  fate,  to  superintend  the 
issues  of  the  moral  life,  to  right  the  wrongs  of  the  natural 
order,  to  watch  the  spiritual  fortunes  of  his  children,  to 
be  himself  the  Home  of  their  spirits.  Nature  is  morally 
blind,  indifferent,  capricious.  Force  is  unethical.  Hence 
the  call  for  a  supreme  Power  akin  to  the  spirit  of  man, 
conscious  of  his  struggle,  sympathetic  with  his  life,  guid- 
ing it  to  a  perfect  issue — the  call  for  a  supremely  right- 
eous Will.  This  belief  in  a  moral  order  is  necessary  if  we 
are  to  be  delivered  from  Pessimism.  Mere  Agnosticism 
means  ethical  Pessimism:  the  only  escape  is  to  "see 
God."  Without  such  a  vision  the  mystery  of  our  human 
life  and  destiny  is  entirely  dark,  the  "  riddle  of  the  pain- 
ful earth  "  is  absolutely  inexplicable.  Unless  our  human 
nature  and  life  are,  in  Professor  Huxley's  phrase,  "  akin 
to  that  which  pervades  the  universe,"  unless  God  is  for 
us,  and  we  are  in  a  real  sense  not  alone  but  co-workers 
with  him,  our  life  is,  as  Hume  described  it,  "a  riddle,  an 
enigma,  an  inexplicable  mystery." 

The  problem  raised  for  human  thought  by  this  dual- 
ism of  Nature  and  morality  is  as  old  as  human  thought 
itself.  It  is  the  problem  of  Fate  or  Fortune, — ^a  Power 
blind  but  omnipotent,  that  sets  its  inexorable  limit  to  the 
life  of  man,  that  closes  at  its  own  set  time,  and  in  its  own 


404  METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 

appointed  way,  all  his  strivings,  and  blots  out  alike  Ws 
goodness  and  his  sin ;  a  Power  which  the  Greeks  quamtlj 
thouc^ht  of  as  superior  even  to  the  gods  themselves,  and 
which  to  the  modern  mind  seems  to  mean  that  there  is  no 
divinity  in  the  world,  that  the  "  nature  of  things    is  non- 
n>oral.    That  which  so  baffles  our  thought  is  "the  recog- 
nition that  the  Cosmos  has  no  place  for  man";  that  lie 
feels  himself,  when  confronted  with  Nature's  might  and 
apparent  indifference,   an   anomaly,  an  accident,  a  for- 
eilner  in  the  world,  a  "  stranger  from  afar."     The  stream 
of%ood  and  evil  seems  to  lose  itself  in  the  mazes  of  the 
course  of  things ;  the  threads  of  moral  distinctions  seem 
to  get  hopelessly  intertwined  in  the   tangled  skein  of 
Nature's  processes. 

"  Streams  will  not  curb  their  pride 
The  just  man  not  to  entomb, 
Kor  lightnings  go  aside 
To  five  his  virtues  room  : 
Kor  is  that  .vind  less  rough  which  blows  a  good  man's  harge. 

"  Nature,  with  equal  mind, 
Sees  all  her  sons  at  play :  ^ 
Sees  man  control  the  wind, 
The  wind  sweep  man  away ; 
Allows  the  proudly  riding  and  the  foundering  bark."i 

I  have  said  that  it  is  a  world-old  problem,  this  of  the 
ultimate  issues  of  the  moral  life.  And  it  has  seemed  as  it 
the  only  escape  from  total  pessimism  lay  m  a  calm  and 
uncomplaining  surrender  of  that  which  most  of  all  m  life 
we  prize.  Let  us  cease  to  make  our  futile  demand  of  the 
nature  of  things ;  ceasing  to  expect,  we  shall  also  cease 

1  Matthew  Arnold,  "Empedocles  on  Etna." 


THE    PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


405 


from  disappointment  and  vexation  of  spirit.  Be  it  ours  to 
conform  with  the  best  grace  we  can  to  Nature's  ways,  since 
she  will  not  conform  to  ours.  Let  us  meet  Nature's  "  moral 
indifference  "  with  the  proud  indifference  to  Nature  of  the 
moral  man.  A  stranger  in  the  world,  with  his  true  citizen- 
ship in  the  ethical  and  ideal  sphere,  let  man  withdraw 
within  himself,  and  escape  the  shock  of  outward  circum- 
stance by  cutting  off  the  tendrils  of  sensibility  which 
would  take  hold  on  the  course  of  the  world  and  make  him 
its  slave.  "  Because  thou  must  not  dream,  thou  needst  not 
then  despair ! "  But  neither  the  philosopher  nor  the  poet, 
no,  nor  even  the  "  ordinary  man,"  will  consent  to  forego 
his  dreams  and  hopes,  nor  will  humanity  pass  from  its 
bitter  plaint  against  the  evil  course  of  things  and  the 
trade  wreck  of  human  lives.  Such  a  dualism  and  contra- 
diction  between  man  and  his  world  presses  for  its  solution 
in  some  deeper  unity  that  shall  embrace  and  explain  them 
both.  The  Stoics  themselves,  the  great  preachers  of  Eesig- 
nation,  had  their  own  solution  of  the  problem.  The  ways 
of  the  cosmos  were  not  for  them  dark  or  unintelligible  ; 
the  "nature  of  things"  was,  like  human  nature,  in  its 
essence  altogether  reasonable.  The  question  raised  by  the 
impossibility  of  correlating  man  and  Nature  by  "  natural- 
ising the  moral  man  "  is,  whether  we  cannot  reduce  both 
man  and  nature  to  a  deeper  unity:  whether,  though 
"  human  nature  "  is  for  ever  distinct  from  physical  nature, 
and  the  world  of  morality  "  an  artificial  world  within  the 
cosmos,"  both  are  not  expressions  or  exponents  of  a  deeper 
"  nature  of  things."  Such  a  question  the  unifying  instinct 
of  man  cannot  help  raising.  Even  Professor  Huxley  admits 
that  "the  ethical  process  must  bear  some  sort  of  relation  to 


406 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


407 


the  cosmic."    Nor  need  this  relation  be  that  of  levelling 
down,  of  reducing  man  to  Nature.   Why  should  we  not  level 
up  ?    Why  should  not  Nature,  if  in  one  sense  the  eternal 
enemy  of  man,  to  be  subdued  under  his  feet  if  he  is  to  Ic 
man,  yet  also  be  the  minister  and  instrument  of  man's 
moral  life,  charged   with   a  moral   mission  even  in  its 
moral  "  enmity  "  or  "  indifference  "  ?    If  the  ethical  pro- 
cess is   not  part   of  the   cosmic  process,   may   not  the 
cosmic  be  part  of  the  ethical  ?  or  better,  may  not  both 
be  parts  of  the  Divine  process  of  the  universe  ?     Smce 
man  has  to  live  the  ethical  life  in  a  natural  world,  in  a 
world  which  is  in  a  sense  the  enemy  of  that  life,  and  in 
a  sense  indifferent  to  it,  may  not  the  ethical  process  be 
"  more  reasonably  described  as  an  agency  which  directs 
and  controls  rather  than  entirely  opposes  the   cosmical 

process    '.  . 

To  the  question  whether  we  can  thus  correlate  the  ethical 
with   the  cosmical  process,  man  and  Nature,  by  seeing 
God  in  both,  in  such  wise  that  Nature  shall  become  the 
instrument  and  servant  of  the  ethical  spirit ;  or  whether 
Nature  must  remain  for  man  an  alien  and  opposing  force 
which,  by  its  moral  indifference,  is  always  liable,  if  not  to 
defeat,  to  embarrass  and  endanger,  moral  ends,— to  this 
question   I  do  not  see  that  we   can  give  more  than  a 
tentative  answer.    Our  answer  must  be  rather  a  specula- 
tive guess,  a  philosophic  faith,  than  a  reasoned  certainty. 
"Natare"  in  ourselves  we  may  annex,  our  natural  dis- 
positions, instincts,  impulses,  we  may  subdue  to  moral 
ends ;  this  raw  material  we  may  work  entirely  into  the 
texture  of  the  ethical  life.    But  what  of  the  "Nature" 

1  '  Athenoeum;  July  22,  1893. 


which  is  without  ourselves  ?  What  of  that  "  furniture 
of  fortune"  of  which  Aristotle  speaks,  which  seems  to 
come  to  us  and  to  be  taken  away  from  us  without  any 
reference,  oftentimes,  to  our  ethical  deservings  ?  What 
of  that  "  fate  "  in  which  our  life  is  involved,  whose  issues 
are  unto  life  and  unto  death,  which  disappoints  and 
blights  our  spiritual  hopes,  whose  capricious  favours  no 
merit  can  secure,  w^hose  gifts  and  calamities  descend, 
without  discrimination,  upon  the  evil  and  the  good  ?  Call 
it  what  we  will  —  "fortune,"  "circumstance,"  "fate"  — 
does  there  not  remain  an  insoluble  and  baffling  quantity 
— an  X  which  we  can  never  eliminate,  and  whose  presence 
destroys  all  our  calculations  ?  Yet  the  ground  of  moral 
confidence  is  the  conviction,  inseparable  from  the  moral 
life,  of  the  supremacy  and  ultimate  masterfulness  of  the 
moral  order.  Professor  Huxley  himself  expresses  a  sober 
and  measured  confidence  of  this  kind.  "It  may  seem  an 
audacious  proposal  thus  to  pit  the  microcosm  against  the 
macrocosm,  and  to  set  man  to  subdue  Nature  to  his  higher 
ends ;  but  I  venture  to  think  that  the  great  intellectual 
difference  between  the  ancient  times  .  .  .  and  our  day 
lies  in  the  solid  foundation  we  have  acquired  for  the  hope 
that  such  an  enterprise  may  meet  with  a  certain  meas- 
ure of  success."  Man  has  learned,  with  the  advance  of 
science,  his  own  power  over  Nature,  the  power,  which 
increasing  knowledge  brings,  to  subdue  Nature  to  his 
own  ends,  and  his  confidence  inevitably  grows  that  he  is 
Nature's  master,  not  her  slave.  But  whether  he  can  ever 
entirely  subdue  her,  whether  the  natural  order  will  ever 
be  ^0  filled  with  the  moral  order  as  to  be  the  perfect  ex- 
pression and  vehicle  of  the  latter ;  or  whether  the  natural 


408  METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 

order  must  always  remain  the  imperfect  expression  of  the 
moral,  and  some  new  and  perfect  expression  be  framed  for 
it  we  cannot  tell.  Only  this  we  can  say,  that  since  each 
is' an  order,  since  Nature  itself  is  a  cosmos,  not  a  chaos 
and  since  they  issue  from  a  common  source,  Nature  and 
morality  must  ultimately  be  harmonised. 

T„e  mod-        5.  This,  in   itself  unchanging,  problem   assumes  two 
Z?fme  different  aspects  as  it  appears  in  ancient  and  in  modern 
P™^''"'-     speculation     It  is  in  the  latter  of  these  aspects  that  we 
are  naturally  most  familiar  with  it,  and  in  this  form 
perhaps  its  most  characteristic  statement  is  that  of  Kant. 
The  ultimate   issue  of  goodness,  he  contends,  must  be 
happiness ;  the  external  and  the  internal  fortunes  of  the 
soul  must  in  the   end  coincide.    This  is  the  Kantian 
arc^ument  for  the  existence  of  God,  as  moral  Governor  of 
thi  universe,  distributor  of  rewards  and  punishments  m 
accordance  with  individual  desert.     For  though  the  very 
essence  of  virtue  is  its  disinterestedness,  yet  the  final 
equation  of  virtue  and  happiness  is,  for  Kant,  the  pos- 
tulate of  morality.     We  have  seen  that  the  hedonists, 
who  reduce  virtue  to  prudence  and  the   right  to   the 
expedient,  find  themselves  forced,  in  order  to  the  vindica- 
tion of  altruistic  conduct,  or  of  that  part  of  virtue  which 
refuses  to  be  resolved  into  prudence,  to  make  the  same 
postulate  in  another  form.    Either  the  appeal  is  made  to 
the  future  course  of  the  evolutionary  process,  which,  it  is 
arc'ued,  cannot  stop  short  of  the  identification  of  virtue 
and  prudence,  individual  goodness  and  individual  hap- 
piness •   or  it  is  maintained,  as  by  Professor  Sidgwick, 
that  the  gap  in  ethical  theory  must  be  filled  in  by  a 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


409 


theological  hypothesis  of  the  Kantian  sort.  The  Socratic 
conviction  is  reasserted,  that  "  if  the  Eulers  of  the  universe 
do  not  prefer  the  just  man  to  the  unjust,  it  is  better  to 
die  than  to  live."  Nor  is  such  a  demand  the  expression 
of  mere  self-interest.  "  When  a  man  passionately  refuses 
to  believe  that  the  '  wages  of  virtue '  can  '  be  dust,'  it  is 
often  less  from  any  private  reckoning  about  his  own 
wages  than  from  a  disinterested  aversion  to  a  universe 
SO  fundamentally  irrational  that '  God  for  the  Individual ' 
is  not  ultimately  identified  with  '  Universal  Good.' "  ^ 
The  assumption  of  such  a  moral  order,  maintained  by  a 
moral  Governor,  is  accordingly  accepted  as  "  an  hypo- 
thesis logically  necessary  to  avoid  a  fundamental  contra- 
diction in  one  chief  department  of  our  thought."  ^  Even  in 
this  aspect,  the  problem  is  not  exclusively  modern.  The 
coincidence  of  outward  prosperity  with  righteousness, 
individual  and  national,  was  the  axiom  of  Hebrew 
thought  —  an  axiom  whose  verification  in  national  and 
individual  experience  cost  the  Hebrews  much  painful 
thouorht,  and  often  seemed  to  be  threatened  with  final 
disappointment.  Even  the  lesson,  learned  by  bitter 
experience,  that  man  must  be  content  to  "serve  God 
for  nought,"  never  carried  with  it  for  them  the  defini- 
tive divorce  of  righteousness  and  prosperity.  Their  in- 
tense moral  earnestness  persisted  in  its  demand  for  an 
ultimate  harmony  of  external  fortune  with  inward  merit ; 
sin  and  suffering,  goodness  and  happiness,  must,  they  felt, 
ultimately  coincide.  And,  like  our  modern  Kantians 
and  Evolutionists,   they  were   compelled  to   adjourn   to 

1  Sidgwick,  'Methods  of  Ethics,'  504  (3d  ed.) 

2  Ibid.,  505. 


410 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


THE    PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


411 


the  future,  now  of  the  community,  now  of  the  indi- 
vidual, the  solution  of  a  problem  which  their  present 
experience  always  left  unsolved. 

Yet  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  this  is  not  the  most 
adequate   or  the   worthiest   statement   of    the    problem. 
There  is   a  feeling   of   externality  about   such   a   moral 
universe  as  that  of  the  Hebrews,  of  Kant,  or  of  Professor 
Sidgwick ;  such  a  God  is  a  kind  of  deus  ex  machina,  after 
all,— an  agent  introduced  from  outside  into  a  scheme  of 
things  which  had  seemed  already  complete,  to  re-adjust 
an  order  already  adjusted.      Especially  in  Kant  we  feel 
that,  in  spite  of  all  his  skilful  pleading,  there  is  a  fall 
from  the  elevated  and  consistent  Stoicism  of  his  ethics 
to  the  quasi -Hedonism  of  his  moral  theology;   the  old 
keynote  sounds  no  longer.     Nor  is  his  God  much  better 
than  "  a  chief-of-police  of  the  moral  universe."     It  seems 
to  me  that  the  ancient  Greek  statement  of  the  problem 
was  much  more  adequate  than  the  characteristic  modern 
version  of  it,  and  that  the  Greek  solution  is  also  more 
suggestive  of  the  true  direction  in  which   the  solution 
must  be  sought. 


Its  ancient 
statement. 


6.  The  Greek  problem  was  that  of  an  adequate  sjphere 
for  the  exercise  of  virtue.  In  general  this  sphere  was 
found  in  the  State,  and  Plato  held  that  there  was  no 
contradiction  more  tragic  than  that  of  a  great  nature 
condemned  to  live  in  a  mean  State ;  great  virtue  needs  a 
great  sphere  for  its  due  exercise.  And  the  Greek  State,  at 
its  best,  did  provide  a  splendid,  and  to  the  Greeks  a  satis- 
fying, sphere  for  the  exercise  of  human  virtue.  It  en- 
larged and  ennobled,  without  annulling,  the  life  of  the 


individual  citizen.  For  Aristotle,  though  the  State  is  still 
the  ideal  sphere  of  virtuous  activity,  and  Ethics  itself  "  a 
sort  of  political  inquiry,"  the  problem  has  already  changed 
its  aspect,  and  become  more  directly  a  problem  of  the 
individual  life.  To  him  the  question  is  that  of  the 
opportunity  for  the  actualisation  of  the  virtue  or  excel- 
lence which  exists  potentially  in  every  man.  The  actual- 
isation (ii/epyeca)  of  virtue  is  for  him  of  supreme  im- 
portance ;  and  whether  any  man's  potential  virtue  shall 
be  actualised  or  not,  is  determined  not  by  the  man  him- 
self, but  by  his  circumstances, — his  initial  and  acquired 
equipment,  his  "  furniture  of  fortune,"  wealth,  friends, 
honour,  personal  advantage,  &c.  These  things  constitute 
the  man's  moral  opportunity,  and  determine  the  scale 
of  his  ethical  achievement.  A  good,  or  passively  virtuous, 
man  might  "  sleep  all  his  life," — might  never  have  a  fit 
opportunity  of  realising  his  goodness,  never  find  a  suffi- 
cient stage  for  the  demonstration  of  his  powers  in  act, 
or  never  find  his  part  in  the  drama  of  human  history. 
The  tide  of  fortune  might  never  for  him  come  to  the 
flood,  and  as  it  ebbed  away  from  him  he  might  well  feel 
that  it  carried  with  it  all  his  hopes  of  high  enterprise 
and  achievement.  Here  Aristotle  seems  to  find  a  baffling, 
inexplicable  surd  in  human  life  —  a  "  given "  element 
which,  in  a  moment,  may  wreck  our  lives,  and  which 
must  fill  some  men  from  the  first  with  despair,  or  at  best 
must  imprison  their  lives  within  the  narrowest  horizon. 
Eor,  so,  we  are  not  masters  even  of  our  own  characters ; 
character  is  the  result  of  exercise, — it  is  not  the  strong, 
but  they  who  run,  that  receive  the  crown  of  virtue.  But 
we  may  never  be  allowed  on  the  course,  or  we  may  not 


I 


■t 


ill 


II' 


412  METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 

have   the   strength  that  is   needed  for   the  race.      The 
ethical  End  cannot  be  compassed-at  least  it  cannot  be 
fully  compassed— without  the  external  aid  of  Fortune ; 
and  Fortune,  Aristotle  seems  to  feel  almost  as  irresistibly 
as  Professor  Huxley  feels  about  Nature,  is  ethically  in- 
different.    The  most  a  man  can  do  is,  he  says,  to  make 
the  best  use  of  the  gifts  of  Fortune,  such  as  they  are, 
"just  as  a  good  general  uses  the  forces  at  his  command 
to  the  best  advantage  in  war,  and  a  good  cobbler  makes 
the  best  shoe  with  the  leather  that  is  given  him." '     But 
oftentimes  the  forces  available  are  all  too  scant  for  any 
deed  of  greatness,  and  the  leather  is  such  that  only  a 
very  indifferent  shoe  can  be  made  out  of  it.     So  that, 
after  all,  it  is  rather  in  the  noble  bearing  of  the  chances 
of  life  than  in  any  certainty  of  actual  achievement,  that 
we  ought  to  place  our  estimate  of  true  nobility  of  soul. 
Even  In   the   most   untoward  circumstances,  —  in  those 
calamities  which  mar  and  mutilate   the   felicity  of  life 
by  causing  pains  and  hindrances  to  its  various  activities, 
—nobility  may  shine  out  when  a  person  bears  the  weight 
of  accumulated  misfortunes  with  calmness,  not  from  in- 
sensibility, but  from   innate    dignity   and    greatness   of 

soul. 

In  this  attitude  of  Aristotle  we  are  already  very  near 

the  position  of   the   Stoics.      The   problem   of  Fortune, 

which   Aristotle   never    completely   solved,    became    the 

chief    problem   of   his   successors;    and  the    Stoics   and 

Epicureans  found  in  part  the  same  solution  of  it.     The 

only  salvation   from  the   evil  chances  of  life   is   to   be 

found,  they  agree,  in  a  self-contained  life  which  is  inde- 

1  Eth.,  I.  xi. 


THE   PKOBLEM   OF   GOD. 


413 


pendent  of  outward  change  and  circumstance.  The  life 
of  the  wise  man  is  a  closed  sphere,  with  its  centre  within 
the  man  himself;  his  mind  to  him  a  kingdom  is,  he  is 
his  own  suJSicient  sphere.  For  the  outward  sphere  has 
become  manifestly  inadequate;  the  splendid  life  of  the 
Greek  States  has  disappeared  in  narrow  provincialism; 
Fortune  Jias  played  havoc  with  man's  life,  and  shattered 
the  fabric  of  his  brave  endeavours.  The  lesson  is  that 
man  must  find  his  good,  if  he  is  to  find  it  at  all,  entirely 
within  himself,  and  must  place  no  confidence  in  the 
course  of  outward  things.  And  has  he  not  the  secret 
of  happiness  in  his  own  bosom?  Is  it  not  for  him  to 
dictate  the  terms  of  his  own  true  welfare  ?  Can  he  not 
shield  himself  from  Fortune's  darts  in  a  complete  armour 
of  indifference  and  "  impassibility  "  ? 

Yet  this  is  not  the  final  resting-place,  either  for  Aris- 
totle or  for  the  Stoics.  The  problem  of  Fortune,  it  is 
quite  manifest,  is  not  yet  solved,  nor  can  the  attempt 
to  solve  it  be  abandoned.  There  is  a  very  real  kinship 
and  community,  it  is  felt,  between  man's  "nature"  and 
the  "  nature  of  things."  The  latter  is  not  the  sphere  of 
blind  chance,  after  all ;  its  essence  is,  like  man's,  rational. 
"  Live  according  to  nature  "  means,  for  the  Stoic,  "  Live 
according  to  the  common  reason,  obey  that  rational  order 
which  embraces  thy  life  and  nature's  too."  Nothing 
happens  by  chance,  everything  befalls  as  is  most  fit ;  and 
man's  true  salvation  is  to  discover  the  fitness  of  each 
thing  that  befalls  him,  and  in  all  things  to  order  his 
behaviour  in  accordance  with  the  eternal  fitness  of  the 
divine  order.  Fortune  is  in  reality  the  Providence  of 
God ;  no  evil  can  happen  to  a  good  man ;  his  affairs  are 


i\ 


;i  i 

I 

I 


:,-5    ■fi»M"*—      =«9^-" 


414  METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 

not  indifferent  to  God.     The  universe  is  itself  divine,-the 
perfect  expression  of  the  divine  Eeason,  and  therefore  the 
home  of  the  rational  spirit  of  man.     Nor  is  man,  after  all 
alone   or  his  life  a  solitary  and  exclusive  one,  contained 
within   the   narrow   bounds   of    his   individual   selfhood. 
Without  ever  straying  beyond  himself,  he  can  become  a 
citizen  of  a  fairer  and  greater  City  than  any  Greek  or 
earthly  State,-a  Civitas  De%  the  "  goodly  fellowship  "  of 
humanity,  yea,  of  the  universe  itself,  for  his  life  and  the 
life  of  the  universe  are  in  their  essence  one.     This  splen- 
did and  spacious  Home  it  was  that  the  Stoics  built  for 
themselves  out  of  the  wreck  of  worldly  empire  and  the 
shattering  of  their  earlier  hopes;  such  sweet  uses  hath 
adversity  for  the  human  spirit.    Aristotle's  problem  seems 

pretty  near  its  solution. 

Aristotle  had  himself  suggested  this  Stoic  solution,  and 
had   even,  in  his  own  bold  metaphysic,  transcended  it. 
He  could  not  stop  short  of  a  perfect  unification  of  man's 
life  with  the  life  of  Nature,  and  of  both  with  the  divme 
universal  Life.    The  universe  has,  for  him,  one  End,  and  one 
perfect  Fulfilment.     The  Form  of  aH  things,  and  the  Form, 
if  we  may  say  so,  of  human  life,  are  the  same ;  the  Form 
of  the  universe  is  Eeason.     And  the  apparent  unreason, 
the  "  matter  "  of  the  world  and  of  morality,  is  only  reason 
in  the  making  or  "  becoming."     It  is  "  the  promise  and 
the  potency  "  of  reason,  and  will  in  due  time  demonstrate 
its  rationality  by  a  perfect  fulfilment  and  actualisation. 
The  process  of  Nature  and  the  process  of  human  hfe  are 
really  only  stages  in  the  one  entirely  rational  process  of 
the  divine  life.     To  God  all  things  turn,  after  his  per- 
fection  they  all  aspire,  in  him  they  live  and  move  and 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


415 


have  their  being.  And  if  we  ask,  What,  then,  of  "  man's 
place  in  nature "  ?  we  have  Aristotle's  answer  in  his 
doctrine  of  the  human  yjrvxv-  It  is  the  Form  of  the 
body,  its  perfect  actualisation  or  ivTeXex^ia.  Nay,  the 
true  soul  of  man,  the  soul  of  his  soul,  is  that  same  Active 
and  Creative  Eeason,  that  pure  activity  of  thought,  which 
is  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  Being.  In  fulfilling  the 
End  of  his  own  nature,  therefore,  man  is  a  '*  co-worker  with 
God"  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  universal  End.  'For  the 
End  of  the  universe  is  the  same  as  the  End  of  human  life. 
Man  can,  in  virtue  of  his  higher  endowment  of  reason, 
accomplish  with  intelligence  and  insight  that  which  the 
lower  creation  accomplishes  in  its  own  blind  but  unerring 
way.  So  that  ultimately  man  cannot  fail  of  his  End,  any 
more  than  Nature  can  fail  of  hers  ;  let  him  link  his  for- 
tunes with  those  of  the  universe  itself,  and  he  cannot 
fail.  The  "  cosmic  process  "  is  not  indifferent  to  man, 
who  is  its  product  and  fulfilment,  and  also,  in  a  sense, 
its  master  and  its  end.  Aristotle  does  not  bring  together 
his  ethical  doctrine  of  Fortune  as  an  external  and  in- 
different power  which  may  as  readily  check  as  forward 
the  fulfilment  of  man's  moral  nature  and  his  attainment 
of  his  true  end,  and  his  metaphysical  doctrine  of  the 
unity  of  the  divine  or  universal  End  with  the  end  of 
human  life, — a  unity  which  would  imply  that  there  cannot 
be,  in  man  any  more  than  in  Nature,  such  a  thing  as 
permanently  unfulfilled  capacity,  or  potentiality  that  is 
not  perfectly  actualised.  But  the  profound  meaning  of 
his  total  thought  about  the  universe  would  seem  to  be 
that  man  must  share  in  the  fruition  of  the  great  con- 
summation, that  without  his  participation  it  would  be  no 


f    v\ 


ij! 


!  ! 


w    • 


■    N 


til 


ill 


416 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


The  Chris- 
tian sol- 
ution. 


consummation  at  all,  and  that  into  that  diviner  Order 
the  lower  order  (or  disorder)  of  outward  accident  in 
which  his  life  had  seemed  to  be  confined  and  thwarted 
of  its  fulfilment,  must  ultimately  disappear.  Thus  in- 
terpreted, the  thought  of  Aristotle  would  at  once  antici- 
pate and  transcend  the  Stoic  philosophy  of  man  and 
Mature,  in  the  measure  that  the  Aristotelian  theology 
anticipates  and  transcends  the  theology  of  the  Porch. 

7.   Christianity   offers   its   own    bold   solution   of    the 
problem  we  are  considering.     It  knows  no  ultimate  dis- 
tinction between  the  course  of  the  world  and  the  course 
of  the  moral  life,  but  sees  "  all  things  working  together 
for  good,"  and  discerns  in  each  event  of  human  history  a 
manifestation  of  the  divine  Providence.    The  natural  order 
is  incorporated  in  the  moral ;  and  even  where,  to  the  Greek 
mind,  and  to  the  pagan  mind  always,  the  latter  seemed  to 
thwart  and  retard  the  former,  it  is  felt  most  surely  to  pro- 
mote  and  help  it  on.     Misfortune  and  calamity,  instead  of 
being  obstacles  to  the  development  of  goodness,  are  the 
very'soil  of  its  best  life,-the  atmosphere  it  needs  to  brmg 
it  to  perfection.    Not  the  wealthy,  but  the  poor ;  not  the 
prosperous,  but  the  persecuted ;  not  the  high-minded,  but 
the   lowly,  the  weary,  and  the   heavy-laden,  are  called 
blessed.     A  new  office  is  found  for  suffering  and  calamity 
in  the  life  of  goodness ;  man  is  "  made  perfect  through 
suffering "     And  while  Aristotle  thought  that  length  of 
days  was  needed  for  a  complete  life,   Christianity   has 
taught  us  that — 

"  In  short  measures  life  may  perfect  be." 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


417 


Nor  is  salvation  found  any  longer  in  a  mere  Stoical  in- 
difference or  apathy  to  misfortune ;  such  a  "  bearing "  is 
no  real  hearing  of  calamity,  but  rather  a  cowardly  retreat  • 
from  it.  It  is  in  the  actual  suffering  of  evil  that  Chris- 
tianity finds  the  "  soul  of  good  "  in  it.  Its  office  is  discip- 
linary and  purifying,  and  "though  no  suffering  for  the 
present  seemeth  joyous  but  rather  grievous,  yet  afterward 
it  yieldeth  the  peaceable  fruits  of  righteousness  in  those 
that  are  exercised  thereby."  Instead  of  negating  the  exer- 
cise of  virtue  (as  Aristotle  thought),  calamity  provides  the 
very  opportunity  of  its  best  and  highest  exercise,  and 
therefore  must  be  regarded  as  the  most  perfect  instrument 
in  the  development  of  goodness.^ 

8.  If  philosophy  finds  itself  precluded  from  going  the  The  ideal 
whole  length  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  divine  Provi-  Rell!^^ 
dence,  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  Christianity  puts  into  the 
hands  of  philosophy  a  clue  which  it  would  do  well  to 
follow  up,  especially  since  the  conception  is  not  altogether 
new,  but  is  the  complement  and  development  of  the  Aris- 
totelian and  Stoic  theology  which  I  have  just  sketched. 
All  that  I  am  concerned  at  this  point  to  maintain  is  the 
speculative  legitimacy  and  necessity  of  the  demand  for  a 
Moral  Order  somehow  pervading  and  using  (in  however 

1  Addison  has  given  quaint  expression  to  this  Christian  estimate  of  so- 
called  "Misfortune"  in  his  fine  allegory  of  "The  Golden  Scales."  "I 
observed  one  particular  weight  lettered  on  both  sides,  and  upon  applying 
myself  to  the  reading  of  it,  I  found  on  one  side  written,  '  In  the  dialect  of 
men,'  and  underneath  it,  '  Calamities  ' :  on  the  other  side  was  written, 
'In  the  language  of  the  gods,'  and  underneath  'Blessings.'  I  found  the 
intrinsic  value  of  this  weight  to  be  much  greater  than  I  imagined,  for  it 
overpowered  health,  wealth,  good-fortune,  and  many  other  weights,  which 
were  much  more  ponderous  in  my  hand  than  the  other." 

2d 


n 

•  ( 


418  METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 

strance  and  unexpected  wise)  the  order  of  Nature,  and  thus 
makin"  possible  for  the  moral  being  the  fulfilment  of  his 
moral  task,  the  perfect  realisation  of  all  his  moral  capaci- 
ties    That  the  universe  is  not  foreign  to  the  ethical  spirit 
of  man,  or  indifferent  to  it,  but  its  sphere  and  atmosphere, 
the  soil  of  its  life,  the  breath  of  its  being ;  that  "  the  soul 
of  the  ^yorld  is  just,"  that  "might"  is  ultimately  "right," 
and  the  divine  and  universal  Power  "  a  power  that  makes 
for  righteousness";  that  so  far  from  the  nature  of  things 
being° antagonistic  to  morality,  "morality  is  the  nature  of 
things  "—this  at  least,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  metaphysical 
implication  of  morality  as  we  know  it.     A  moral  universe, 
an  absolute  moral  Being,  is  the  indispensable  Environment 
of  the  ethical  life,  without  which   it   cannot   attain   its 
perfect  "rowth.    A  "  first  Actuality,"  of  goodness  as  of  in- 
telligence, is  the  presupposition  of,  and  the  only  sufficient 
security  for,  the  perfect  actualisation  of  moral  as  of  in- 
tellectual capacity.      Philosophy  must  acknowledge  the 
rioht  of  a  moral  being  to  self-realisation  and  complete- 
ness of  ethical  life,  and  substantiate  his  claim  upon  the 
universe  whose  child  he  is,  that  it  .shall  be  the  medium, 
and  not  the  obstacle  and   negation,  of  his  proper  life  ? 
This  ultimate  and  inalienable  human  right  is  not  a  "  right 
to  bliss,"  "to  welfare  and  repose,"  but  a  right  to  self- 
fulfilment  and  realisation.    To  deny  this  right,  to  invali- 
date this  claim,  is  either  to  naturalise,  i.e.,  to  de-moralise 
man   or  to  convict  the  universe  of  failure  to  perfect  its 
own' work,  to  say  that,  in  the  end,  the  part  contradicts 
the  whole.      Our  reasons  for  dissenting  from  the  former 
alternative  have  been  already  given,  and  belong  to  our 
entire  ethical  theory ;  to  assent  to  the  latter  would  be  to 


'"*Si*t..= 


..y  ^m&»K'  "■"?!'5s*saj*' 


;,«», «-  ..,«<!-•  ...  »j«»«i.ii*w~.«J««llii»".*-*«»«"-*»^-'-* 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


419 


deny  the  reality  of  the  universe,  and  to  surrender  the  pos- 
sibility of  philosophy  itself.  Accordingly,  we  seem  not 
only  warranted,  but  compelled,  to  maintain  the  moral 
constitution  of  the  universe.  This  is,  in  the  words  of  a 
recent  French  writer,  "  the  only  hypothesis  which  explains 
the  totality  of  phenomena,  moral  phenomena  included, 
which  grasps  the  harmony  between  them  and  us,  which 
gives,  with  this  unity  and  harmony,  clearness  to  the  mind, 
strength  to  the  will,  sweetness  to  the  soul."  ^  Fichte's 
question  is  most  pertinent,  "While  nothing  in  nature 
contradicts  itself,  is  man  alone  a  contradiction  ? "  ^ 

The  same  conclusion  is  reached  by  pressing  the  investi- 
gation of  the  ultimate  significance  of  morality  itself.     We 
have  seen  that  the  moral  life  is  in  its  essence  an  ideal 
life — a   life   of    aspiration   after   the   realisation   of  that 
which  is  not  yet  attained,  determined  by  the  unceasing 
antithesis  of  the  Is  and  the  Ought-to-be.      What,  then, 
we  are  forced  at  last  to  ask,  is  the  source  and  warrant 
of  this  Moral  Ideal,  of  this  imperious  Ought-to-be  ?     To 
answer  that  it  is  entirely  subjective,  the  moving  shadow 
of  our  actual  attainment,  would  be  irrevocably  to  break 
the  spell  of  the  Ideal,  and  to  make  it  a  mere  foolish  will- 
o'-the-wisp  which,   once   discovered,  could   cheat  us   no 
longer  out  of  our  sensible  satisfaction  with  the  actual. 
An   ideal   with   no  foothold   in  the  real,   would   be   the 
most  unsubstantial  of  all  illusions.    As  Dr  Martineau  has 
strikingly  said :  "  Amid  all  the  sickly  talk  about  '  ideals  * 
which  has  become  the  commonplace  of  our  age,  it  is  well 
to  r6member  that,  so  long  as  tliey  are  dreams  of  future 
possibility,  and  not  faiths  in  present  realities,  so  long  as 

1  Ricardou,  '  De  I'lddal,'  325.  -  '  Popular  Works,'  i.  346  (Eng.  tr.) 


i' 


(i 


^^v. 


'^^K^Sfe'  '*"^*^^6S^3*' '  ' 


ii  *-,  --.-.sai^em^iMii^m 


420 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


they  are  a  mere  self-painting  of  the  yearning  spirit,  .  .  • 
they  have  no  more  solidity  or  steadiness  than  floating  air- 
bubbles,  gay  in  the  sunshine,  and  broken  by  the  passing 
wind  "   What  is  needed  to  give  the  Ideal  its  proper  dignity 
and  power  is  "  the  discovery  that  your  gleaming  Ideal  is 
the  everlasting  Eeal,  no  transient  brush  of  a  fancied  ange 
win-  but  the  abiding  presence  and  persuasion  of  the  Soul 
of  souls  "  1     The  secret  of  the  power  of  the  Moral  Ideal  is 
the  conviction  which  it  carries  with  it  that  it  is  no  mere 
Ideal,  but  the  expression,  more  or  less  perfect,  and  always 
becoming  more  perfect,  of  the  supreme  Keality  ;  that  "  the 
rule  of  right,  the  symmetries  of  character,  the  require- 
ments of  perfection,  are  no  provincialisms  of  this  planet ; 
they  are  known  among  the  stars ;  they  reign  beyond  Orion 
and  the  Southern  Cross ;  they  are  wherever  the  universal 
Spirit  is  "  ^     The  entire  preceding  discussion  goes  to  show 
that  to 'make   morality  entirely  relative  and  subjective, 
to  cive  a  merely  empirical  ^'  evolution  "  of  it,  is  to  destroy 
its°inner   essence,   and   to   miss   its   characteristic   note. 
That  note  is  the  ideal  without  whose  constant  presence 
and   operation  moral  development  would  be  impossible. 
But   we  have  reserved   the   question  of   the  origin  and 
warrant,   of   the   Ideal   itself;    and  when   we   ask  it  to 
produce  its  "  certificate  of  birth,"  it  is  compelled  to  refer 
us  to  the  "  nature  of  things,"  and  to  proclaim  that  the 
way  in  which  it  has  commanded  us  to  walk  is  the  Way 
of  the  Cosmos  itself,  the  Way  of  the  divine  Order. 

1  Martineau,  'Study  of  Religion,'  i.  12.  Cf.  Ricardou,  '  De  I'ld^al' 
262  •  "  It  is  not  enough  that  the  ideal  charm  the  imagination  by  its 
poetry,  it  is  necessary  that  it  satisfy  the  reason  by  its  truth,  its  objective 
and  absolute  truth." 

2  Martineau,  op.  ciL,  i.  26. 


1,1 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


421 


Thus  an  adequate  interpretation  of  morality  compels  us 
to  predicate  an  ultimate  and  absolute  moral  Eeality,  a 
supreme  ground  of  Goodness  as  well  as  of  Truth,  and  the 
moral  idealism  which  we  have  maintained  against  empiri- 
cal realism  in  Ethics  brings  us  in  the  end  to  a  moral  Eeal- 
ism,  to  a  conviction  of  the  Eeality  of  the  Moral  Ideal.  We 
are  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Ideal  is  not  simply 
the  unreal,  but  the  expression  and  exponent  of  the  Eeal ; 
that  that  which  on  our  side  of  it  is  the  Ideal,  is,  on  its 
farther  side,  the  Eeal ;  that  behind  the  Ought  lies  the  Is, 
behind  our  eternal  Ought-to-be  the  eternal  I  am  of  the 
divine  Eighteousness.  But  that  supreme  moral  Eeality  we 
can  only  apprehend  on  this,  our  human  side ;  its  farther 
side  we  may  not  see.  "  No  man  shall  see  God's  face  and 
live ; "  the  full  vision  would  scorch  man's  little  life  in  the 
"  consuming  fire  "  of  the  divine  perfection.  To  see  God,  we 
must  be  like  him  ;  it  is  a  moral  rather  than  an  intellectual 
apprehension.  Yet,  as  we  obey  the  Ought-to-be,  and  realise 
in  ourselves  the  Ideal  Good,  we  do  in  our  human  measure 
and  in  our  appropriate  human  way  come  to  the  fuller 
knowledge  of  the  divine  Goodness.  The  veil  that  hides 
it  from  us — the  veil  of  our  own  failure  and  imperfection 
— is  gradually  taken  away,  and  "the  pure  in  heart  see 
God." 

To  make  the  antithesis  between  the  ideal  and  the  real 
final,  and  to  refuse  to  recognise  the  reality  of  the  ideal,  is 
to  betray  a  radical  misunderstanding  of  the  ideal  and  of 
its  relation  to  the  real.  We  must  distinguish  carefully 
between  the  real  and  the  actual,  between  the  absolute  and 
eternal  Eeal  and  the  empirical  and  historical  Actual. 
The  ideal  is,  as  such,  always  opposed  to  the  actual ;  but 


i  .1 


■■^^i«SS^fea6«»-*«'-'S*i,ii«*3^e'  s^'-^' 


.^■-s-   ''^^■^  -'"•«-*i 


■  i«»»^,!f^"**'  •»i»S*^-3''^'^^  ■"  '^ 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


422 

this  does  not  prevent  its  being  the  exponent  of  the  real 
Whence  comes  the  ideal  of  the  actual  but  from  the  Eeahty 
IL  Being  of  the  actual  itself  ?     Thus  the  .deal  brmgs 
us  nearer  to  Eeality  than  the  actual;  tl.  one  .s  a  more 
perfect,  the  other  a  less  perfect,  expression  of  the  sm    e 
Reality  in  relation  to  which  both  stand,  and  out  of  rela- 
tion  to  which  the  distinction  between  them  would  disap- 
pear     For  that  distinction  must  be  interpreted  as  having 
an  objective,  and  not  merely  a  subjective,  basis  and  sig- 
nificance.    "  The  ideal,  founded  upon  the  reasoned  and 
positive  knowledge  of  the  essential  nature  of  being  is  at 
once  true  and  possible ;  it  is  superior,  not  contrary  to   he 
actual  fact ;  in  a  sense  it  is  truer  than  fact  itself ;  for  it  is 
fact  purified,  transformed,  such  as  it  would  be  if  nothing 
opposed  its  development ;  it  is  reality  tending  to  its  com- 
plete actualisation.-     The  ideal  is,  truly  understood  the 
mirror  in  which  we  see  reflected  at  once  the  real  and  the 
actual;  it  is  founded  in  the  real,  and  is  at  the  same  time 
and  for  that  reason  the  heart  and  truth  of  the  actual 
The  ideal  or  potential  is  not  simply  what  the  actual  zs  not 
it  is  also  the  prophecy  and  guararitee  of  what  the  actual 
shall  be-nay,  the  revelation  of  what  in  its  essence  i    is 
-its  very  hcing^  its  ri  ^v  elva^.     The  Ought  of  morality 
is  the  dictation  of  the  ethical  Whole  to  its  parts,  for  the 
true  nature  of  the  parts  is  determined  by  the  nature  of 
their  common  Whole.     It  is  6nly  the  empiricist  who  sub- 
ordinates the  ideal  to  the  actual,  who  makes  the  actual  the 
only  real,  and  sees  in  the  Whole  but  the  sum  of  the  parts. 

.  Kicardou,  'De  I'ldeal,'  22.     Cf.  Professor  ^^aird,  '  Evoh^^^^^^ 
ligioD,'  ii.  229  :  "  The  ideal  reveals  itself  as  the  reality  which  is  hid  beneath 
the  immediate  appearance  of  things." 


THE    PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


423 


But  evolution  itself  should  teach  us  to  find  the  real  al- 
ways in,  or  rather  behind,  the  ideal ;  never  in,  but  always 
ahead  of,  the  actual.  The  empirical  time-process,  if  it  has  • 
a  meaning,  implies  an  eternal  Eeality, — a  Being  of  the  Be- 
coming, a  Something  that  becomes,  the  Beginning  and  the 
End  of  the  entire  process  of  development.  The  process  is 
the  evolution— the  gradual  unfolding  or  appearing  of  that 
essential  Eeajity  which  is  its  constant  implication. 

9.  Such  an  interpretation  of  Moral  Eeality,  as  only  the  The  Per- 

sonality 

other  side  of  the  Moral  Ideal,  enables  us  to  be  faithful  to  of  God. 
the  great  Kantian  principle  of  the  essential  Autonomy 
of  the  moral  life.  It  is  a  principle  divined  by  other 
moralists,  by  Plato  and  Butler  especially,  that  man  cannot 
properly  acknowledge  subjection  to  any  foreign  legisla- 
tion, but  is  for  ever  '-'a  law  unto  himself,"  his  own  judge, 
at  once  subject  and  sovereign  in  the  moral  realm.  But 
the  Kantian  Autonomy  is  not  a  final  explanation  of 
morality.  How  comes  it,  we  must  still  ask,  that  man  is 
fitted  for  the  discharge  of  such  a  function ;  whence  this 
splendid  human  endowment  ?  Kant  does  not  himself 
connect  the  self -legislation  of  man  with  the  divine  Source 
of  moral  government  in  the  universe ;  but  his  doctrine  of 
Autonomy  teaches  us  that  the  connection  must  be  no 
external  one.  The  supreme  Head  of  the  moral  universe 
— he  who,  as  Holy  and  not  placed  under  Duty,  is  only 
Sovereign  and  never  Subject — must  be  akin  to  its  other 
members  who  occupy  the  "  middle  state,"  and  are  subjects 
as  well  as  sovereigns,  legislators  who  with  difficulty  obey 
the  laws  of  their  own  making.  But  what  is  this  but  to 
say  that  as  the  ideal  is  the  truth  of  the  actual,  so  the 


^  ,,^ja"*^i'ti&Sr' 


■^'-l^%KJ-'f.»-'^ 


'^^■--^''  ■'^^Siip^Ni^H^' 


^-^^Ai-iSi^'T''-3^«s^^^**^l^^'*«**^*^'*"**'^^ 


ai^a(!fe»^BJiiiMiii.|»^WHW"iT  ,,^««s«*i-.«»isB^--»- 


424  METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 

Supreme  Eeality  can  only  be  the  perfect  embodiment  and 
realisation  of  the  ideal.    In  no  one  of  these  three  terms 
do  we  depart  from  the   single   concrete  fact  of  moral 
experience ;  abstract  any  one  of  them,  and  that  concrete 
experience  becomes  impossible.    And  what  is  the  concrete 
fact  the  sin<^le  term  of  which  these  three  are  only  aspects, 
but  Self-hood  or  Personality  ?    Behind  the  actual  there  is 
the  ideal  Self,  and  behind  the  ideal  the  real  or  divme 
Self.     The  whole  drift  of  the  argument  goes  to  show  that, 
in  essence,  God  and  man  must  be  one,  that  God-the 
supreme  moral  Source  and  Principle,  the  Alpha  and  the 
Omeca  of  the  moral  as  of  the  intellectual  hfe-is  the 
eterndly  perfect  Personality,  in  whose  image  man  has 
been   created,  and  after  the   pattern   of  whose  perfect 
nature-the   archetypal   essence   of  his   own-he   must 
unceasingly  strive  to  shape  his  life.     Since  the  Mora 
Ideal  is  an   Ideal   of  Personality,  must  not  the  Moral 
Eeality-the  Eeality  of  which  that  Ideal  is  the  after- 
reflection  as  well  as  the  prophetic  hint-be  the  perfection 
of  Personality,  the  supreme  Person  whose  image  we,  as 
persons,  bear  and  are  slowly  and  with  effort  inscribing  on 
our  natural  individuality  ?    We  must  thus  complete  the 
Kantian  theory  of  Autonomy ;  that  alone  does  not  tell 
the   whole    story   of    the    moral    life.      Its    unyielding 
Oucrht,  its   Categorical    Imperative,    issues    not    merely 
from  the  depths  of  our  own  nature,  but  from  the  heart 
of  the  universe  itself.    We  are  self-legislative ;  but  we 
re-enact  the  law  already  enacted  by  God,  we  recognise, 
rather  than  constitute,  the  law  of  our  own  being.    The 
moral  law  is  the  echo  within  our  souls  of  the  voice  of  the 
Eternal,  "  whose  offspring  we  are." 


Gr 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   GOD. 


425 


All  this,  I  need  hardly  say,  is  not  intended  as  mathe- 
matical demonstration.  Philosophy  never  is  an  "exact 
science."  Eather  it  is  offered  as  the  only  sufficient  Hypo- 
thesis of  the  moral  life.  The  life  of  goodness— the  ideal 
life — is  necessarily  a  grand  speculation,  a  great  "  leap  in 
the  dark."  It  is  a  life  based  on  the  conviction  that  its 
sourceand  its  issues  are  in  the  Eternal  and  the  Infinite. 
Its  mood  is  ."  strenuous,"  enthusiastic,  possessed  by  the 
persuasion  of  its  own  infinite  value  and  significance.  The 
man  lives  under  the  power  of  the  idea  of  the  supreme 
reality  of  moral  distinctions,  and  as  if  their  significance 
were  absolute.  To  invalidate  the  hypothesis  would  be  to 
invalidate  the  life  which  is  based  upon  it.  But  the  life  of 
goodness  is  unyielding  in  its  demand  for  the  sanction,  in 
ultimate  divine  Eeality,  of  its  own  Ideal.  For  that  Ideal 
is  infinite — to  make  it  finite  were  to  destroy  it ;  and,  as 
infinite,  it  must  seek  its  complement  in  the  Infinite  or 
God.  And  if  a  life  thus  founded  is  in  reality  an  infinite 
Peradventure,  one  long  Question  always  repeated,  its  pro- 
gress brings  with  it  the  gradual  conversion  of  the  specula- 
tive Peradventure  into  a  practical  certainty,  and  the  per- 
sistent Question  is  always  answering  itself.  The  touch 
of  this  transcendent  faith  alone  transfigures  man's  life 
with  a  divine  and  absolute  significance,  and  endows  it 
with  an  imperishable  and  unconquerable  strength.  "If 
God  be  for  us,  who  can  be  against  us  ? "  "  We  feel  we 
are  nothing,  but  Thou  wilt  help  us  to  be."  If  indeed  we 
are  in  alliance  with  the  Power  that  rules  the  universe,  we 
may  well  feel  confident  that  "  we  can  do  all  things  " ;  if 
we  are  going  this  warfare  at  our  own  charges,  we  may  as 
well  give  up  the  struggle.     But  the  very  essence  of  good- 


-'*^i^«»««*'^ 


-vi'^s^^^-^^^'^^---^-*^"-^^^*^'**^"*^^ 


426 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


427 


Objections 
to  Anthro- 
pomor- 
phism :  (a) 
from  the 
standpoint 
of  Natural 
Evolution ; 


ness  is  that  it  will  never  give  up,  but  perseveres  even  to 
the  end.  One  thing  alone  would  be  fatal  to  it— the  loss 
of  belief  in  its  own  infinite  reality,  in  its  own  absolute 
worth.  With  that  surrender  would  come  pessimism.  But 
again  the  good  life  never  is  pessimistic.^ 

10.  The  objection  is  made  to  such  an  ethical  or  personal 
conception  of  God,  that  it  is  anthropomorphic,  and  rests, 
like  all  anthropomorphism,  upon  a  false  estimate  of  man's 
place  in  the  universe,  upon  such  an  exaggerated  view  of  his 
own  importance  as  is  fatal  to  the  vision  of  God  in  his  true 
being.  This  objection  comes  from  two  sides,— from  that 
of  Naturalism  and  from  that  of  Transcendentalism,  or 
from  that  of  empirical  and  from  that  of  dialectical  Evolu- 

1  Cf    Professor  James,  '  International  Journal  of  Ethics,'  i.  352,  353  : 
"When  however,  we  believe  that  a  God  is  there,  and  that  he  is  one  of  the 
claimants,  the  infinite  perspective  opens  out.     The  scale  of  the  symphony 
is  incalculably  prolonged.     The  more  imperative  ideals  now  begm  to  speak 
with  an  altogether  new  objectivity  and  significance,  and  to  utter  the  in- 
finitely penetrating,  shattering,  tragically  challenging  mode  of  appeal     .  . 
All  through  history,   in  the  periodical  conflicts  of  puritanism  with  the 
don't-care  temper,  we  see  the  antagonism -of   the  strenuous  and  genial 
moods,  and  the  contrast  between  the  ethics  of  infinite  and  mysterious 
obligation  from  on  high,  and  those  of  prudence  and  the  satisfaction  of 
merelv  finite  needs.     The  capacity  of  the  strenuous  mood  lies  so  deep 
down^mong  our  natural  human  possibilities  that  even  if  there  were  no 
metaphysical  or  traditional  grounds  for  believing  m  a  God,  men  wouH 
postulate  one  simply  as  a  pretext  for  living  hard,  and  getting  out  of  the 
game  of  existence  its  keenest  possibilities  of  zest     Our  attitude  towards 
eoTcrete  evils  is  entirely  different  in  a  world  where  we  believe  there  are 
none  but  finite  demanders,  from  what  it  is  in  one  where  we  3oyously  face 
tragedy  for  an  infinite  demander's  sake.     Every  sort  of  energy  and  en- 
durance, of  courage  and  capacity  for  handling  life's  evils,  is  set  free  in 
those  who  have  religious  faith.     For  this  reason  the  strenuous  type  of 
character  will,  on  the  battle-field  of  human  history,  always  outwear  the 
easy-going  type,  and  religion  will  drive  irreligion  to  the  wall. 


tion.  The  former  need  not  detain  us  long ;  the  latter  will 
require  more  careful  consideration. 

The  evolutionary  view  of  the  universe,  it  is  held,  em- 
phasises the  lesson  of  the  Copernican  change  of  stand- 
point. As  the  geo-centric  conception  was  supplanted  by 
the  helio-centric,  so  must  the  anthropo-centric  view  give 
place  to  the  cosmo-centric.  As  man  has  learned  that  his 
planet  is  not. the  centre  of  the  physical  universe,  he  is 
now  learning  that  he  himself  is  only  an  incident  in  the 
long  course  of  the  evolutionary  process.  His  imagined 
superiority  to  nature,  his  imagined  uniqueness  of  endow- 
ment, must  disappear  when  he  is  found  to  be  the  product 
of  natural  factors,  and  the  steps  are  traced  by  which  he 
has  become  what  he  is. 

But  such  a  deduction  from  the  theory  of  evolution  is 
the  result  of  a  misinterpretation  of  that  theory.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  the  theological  consequence  is  a  metaphysical 
deduction  from  scientific  statements,  rather  than  a  finding 
of  science  itself.  It  is  for  science  to  discover  the  "  law^s  " 
of  phenomena,  or  the  manner  of  their  occurrence,  to 
describe  the  How  of  the  world  and  of  man.  The  What 
and  the  Why  are  questions  for  philosophy.  The  "  laws  " 
of  "  nature  "  which  science  discovers  may  be  at  the  same 
time  the  "  ways  "  of  God,  the  modes  of  the  divine  activity. 
Why  should  not  evolution  by  natural  selection  be  the 
mode  of  the  divine  activity  ?  Even  if  Evolution  be  the 
supreme  Law  of  the  universe,  it  is  only  the  "highest 
generalisation,"  the  most  comprehensive  scientific  state- 
ment of  the  phenomenal  process.  But  the  process  does  not 
explain  itself.  The  "  genetic  method  "  may  be  adequate 
for  science,  it  is  not  adequate  for  philosophy.      Philo- 


■'-."^SrSSi'-. 


s.„;^^**«A#«#%'^«&^'i^:^i^^^^*^^ 


•£^m^m>^mi&^i^s^^ 


^«^a!^sa«^s8W)as^fl**.-«8!»'@*'» 


428  METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 

sophy  can  never  rest  in  a  universe  of  mere  "  Becoming," 
it  must  explain  the  Becoming  by  its  "  Being  "  rather  than 
conversely.      Heraclitus,  as  a  philosophical  evolutionist, 
recognised  this  in  his  assertion  of  the  Law  or  path  (o^o,) 
of  the  process ;  and  Aristotle  saw  still  more  clearly  that 
the  process  of  evolution  is  not  self-explanatory,  that  Be- 
coming rests  on  Being,  that  the  ri  iarcv  of  the  actual  pre- 
supposes  the  o^ala  or  ri  ^v  ehac  of  the  essential  and  ideal. 
In  other  words,  we  understand  the  Becoming  only  when 
we  refer  it  to  the  Being  that  is  becoming.     The  very  con- 
ception of  Evolution  is  teleological.     Evolution  is  not  mere 
change  or  indefinite  movement ;  it  is  progress,  movement 
in  a  certain  direction,  towards  a  definite  goal.     "  The  pro- 
cess of  evolution  is  itself  the  working  out  of  a  mighty 
teleolo-y,  of  which  our  finite  understandings  can  fathom 
but  the  scantiest  rudiments." '    It  has  been  truly  said  that 
"  Evolution  spells   Purpose."     The  philosophic  lesson  of 
Evolutionism  is  the  constant  lesson  of  science  itself,  that 
the  universe  is  a  universe,  a  Many  which  is  also  a  One,  a 
Whole  through  all  its  parts.     And  while  it  is  the  business 
of  the  scientific  Evolutionist  to  analyse  this  Whole  into  its 
component  parts,  it  is  for  philosophy  to  make  the  synthesis 
of  the  parts  in  the  Whole. 

To  discover  this  total  meaning  of  the  evolutionary 
process,  this  End  which  is  at  the  same  time  the  Be- 
cinnina  of  the  entire  movement,  philosophy  must  reverse 
t\e  evolutionary  method,  as  understood  by  science,  and 
explain  the  lower  in  terms  of  the  higher,  rather  than  the 
hi-her  in  terms  of  the  lower ;  the  earlier  m  terms  of 
the  later,  rather  than  the  later  in  terms  of  the  earlier ;  the 

1  Fiske,  *  Cosmic  PhUosopby,'  ii.  406. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


429 


simpler  by  the  more  complex,  rather  than  the  more  com- 
plex by  the  simpler.  For  it  is  in  the  higher  and  later  and 
more  complex  that  we  see  the  unfolding  of  the  essential 
nature  of  the  lower  and  earlier  and  simpler  forms  of 
being.  In  the  latter  we  discover  what  the  former  had 
it  in  them  to  become,  what  the  former  in  promise  and 
potency  already  vjere.  The  oak  explains  the  acorn,  even 
more  truly  than  the  acorn  explains  the  oak.  Now,  the 
highest  and  latest  and  most  complex  form  of  being  that 
we  know  is  man,  and  thus  teleology  becomes  inevita- 
bly anthropomorphism.  The  superiority  of  the  anthropo- 
centric  view  to  the  cosmo-centric  receives  a  new  vindi- 
cation when  we  see  that  man  includes  nature.  "  That 
which  the  pre-Copernican  astronomy  naively  thought 
to  do  by  placing  the  home  of  man  in  the  centre  of 
the  physical  universe,  the  Darwinian  biology  profoundly 
accomplishes  by  exhibiting  man  as  the  terminal  fact  in 
that  stupendous  process  of  evolution  whereby  things  have 
come  to  be  what  they  are.  In  the  deepest  sense  it  is 
as  true  as  ever  it  was  held  to  be,  that  the  world  was  made 
for  man,  and  that  the  bringing  forth  in  him  of  those 
qualities  which  we  call  highest  and  holiest  is  the  final 
cause  of  creation."  ^  For  in  man  we  now  see,  with  a  new 
distinctness,  the  microcosm ;  he  sums  up  in  himself, 
repeats  and  transcends,  the  entire  process  of  the  world. 
Anthropomorphism  is  more  adequate  than  Naturalism, 
because  in  man  we  are  nearer  the  Whole,  and  nearer  the 
Centre,  than  in  nature.  Evolutionism  sends  us,  for  the 
explanation  of  nature,  from  nature  to  man.  The  con- 
tinuity of  the  process  of  evolution  in  nature  and  in  man 

1  Fiske,  'Idea  of  God,'  Pref.  21. 


;«»»  ■■  -iK»r«»--"" 


-  •*!«*■■•  *-. -'ag»<Bf»Bf'«9a^iS.^s»«s 


'J^:^^M^X^^^^ 


,«»;  i«!«»««»»»»«* ' 


430  METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 

is  a  new  vindication  of  anthropomorphism.     As  long  as 
man  conld  separate  himself  from  nature,  and  regard  him- 
self as  unique,  a  Melchisedec-birth,  he  had  no  right  to 
interpret  the  process  of  nature  in  terms  of  himself  "the 
nnitv  of  man  and  nature  which  science  is  slowly  establish- 
in<^  is  the  vindication  of  that  right.     It  does  not  matter 
where  man's  home  may  be,  at  the  centre  or  the  circum- 
ference of  the  physical  system ;  it  does  not  matter  what 
his  history  has  been,  by  what  slow  stages  he  has  become 
what  he  is.     It  is  in  what  he  is,  and  always  in  "  promise 
and  potency  "  was,  that  man's  supreme  importance  lies. 
The  Darwinian,  like  the  Copernican  "  change  of  stand- 
point," has  forced  us  to  revise  our  conception  of  "  man  s 
place  in  nature,"  of  his  temporal  as  well  as  of  his  spatial 
place.    But  his  true  being  shines  out  all  the  more  clearly 

in  the  changed  light. 

If  we  regard  the  universe  as  one  continuous  evolution, 
we  must  find  in  man  the  key  to  the  entire  process.    For 
while  in  the  organic  we  find  the  fulfilment  and  raison 
mre  of  the  inorganic,  the  end  to  which  the  latter  is  a 
means,  in  the  rational  soul  of  iiian  we  must  ftnd,  with 
Aristotle,  that  for  the  realisation  of  which  his  body  exists 
(<.<^MaTo,  evreXkxe^a).      The  course  of  evolution    as  we 
can  empirically  trace  it,  should  teach  us  this.    Till  man 
is  reached,  there  is  no  stopping  anywhere,  each  species 
seems  to  exist  only  as  a  step  towards  the  next.     Nature 
seems  to  be  not  merely  "  careless  of  the  single  life,  but  to 
be  careless  even  of  "  the  type."     But  with  man  the  move- 
ment seems  to  change  its  course,  and  the  progress  seems 
to  be  inwards  rather  than  onwards.     The  human  species 
once  evolved,  the  function  of  evolution  seems  to  be  the 


SSSi-'^Sgi''*^^?*?"^^®®*'^*'^' 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


431 


perfecting  of  this  species.  The  material  world  seems  to 
exist  for  the  body  of  man,  and  man's  body  for  his  soul. 
"  On  earth  there  is  nothing  great  but  man :  in  man  there 
is  nothing  great  but  mind."  Man  seems  indeed  to  be  the 
microcosm,  the  focal  point  of  the  evolutionary  process,  the 
universe  itself  in  miniature.  It  seems  as  if  in  his  perfec- 
tion it  attained  its  end,  and  accomplished  its  mission. 


11.  But  the  charge  of  Anthropomorphism  comes  from  (ft)  from  the 
the  Transcendentalists  as  well  as  from  the  Naturalists,  ofDiaiec- 
from  the  dialectical  as  well  as  from  the  empirical  Evolu-  ution. 
tionists.  Absolute  Idealism  has  no  place  for  Personal- 
ity, or  at  any  rate  for  a  plurality  of  Selves,  human  and 
divine.  It  is  difficult  to  define  Hegelian  "orthodoxy," 
but  it  seems  to  demand  an  impersonal  view  both  of  God 
and  man.  God  thus  becomes  either  the  One  which  is 
not  the  Many,  or  the  All,  the  universal  process  itself. 
Both  views  are  found,  I  think,  in  the  latest  English  ex- 
position of  Hegelian  theology.  Professor  Edward  Caird's 
Giflbrd  Lectures  on  '  The  Evolution  of  Eelicjion.'  On  the 
one  hand,  it  is  maintained  that  we  must  not  conceive 
God  in  terms  either  of  the  Object  or  of  the  Subject,  that 
Naturalism  and  Monotheism  are  alike  inadequate.  God, 
being  the  principle  of  unity  that  underlies  both  subject 
and  object,  must  not  be  identified  with  either.  The  result 
would  seem  to  be  the  impossibility  of  conceiving  God  at 
all.  If,  in  order  to  think  God,  we  must  think  away  all 
the  reality  we  know,  it  is  clear  that  we  cannot  know  God 
at  all.  A  mere  "  principle  of  unity,"  beyond  the  dualism  of 
subject  and  object,  is  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
Spencerian  Absolute, — neither  material  nor  spiritual,  but 


^.^EMtr—  ""  -^^w^-swe**: 


;««*-*'^*'*;~^S6f2?''*^  '•^wic^yi 


:SSI?lSg:?t?^^*Wf*S'tf^^*'^*^' ' 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


432 

the  unknown  and  unknowable  basis  alike  of  material  and 

,     ,  .„n      Professor  Caird  is  evidently  con- 

spiritual  phenomena,     i-rotessor  i.a 

scions  of  this  difficulty,  and  tries  to  answer  it:     What  it 
aid,  can  we  make  of  a  Being  who  is  neither  to  b 
perceived  or  imagined  as  an  object,  nor  to  be  conceived 
Ld  determined  as  a  subject,  but  only  as  the  unity  m 
Thich  all  difference  begins   and   ends  1     Must  we   not 
content  ourselves  with  the  bare  acknowledgment  of  such 
a  Bein^  and  bow  our  heads  before  the  mscratable?      The 
an^wer'is,  that  though  "  in  a  sense  such  a  -versal  miis 
he  beyond  knowledge,  ...  it  is  the  ground  on  which  we 
stand  the  atmosphere  which  surrounds  us,  the  U  bt  by 
^-hich  we  see,  and  the  heaven  that  shuts  us  in.        But 
if  the  God  of  Idealism  must  remain  mere  indeterminate 
Bein.    a  Something  of  which  we  cannot  predicate  any 
attrib;tes.  Idealism  has  only  brought  us  round  by  a  new 
path  to  Agnosticism.    At  best,  such  a  "  principle  of  unity 
could  be^only  the  forn.  of  our  knowledge,  and  a  form 
into  which  we  are  not  allowed  to  put  any  content  must 
needs  remain  empty  and  abstract. 

The  only  escape  from  this  formalism  of  a  mere  "prin- 
ciple of  unity"  seems  to  lie  in  the  identification  of  God 
Jth  the  process  of  experience,  the  "  system  of  relations, 
the  dialectical  movement  of  reason  in  nature  and  in  man. 
God  thus  becomes  the  All  regarded  as  One,  the  Whole, 
the  Universe  itself.    Now,  since  this  Whole,  to  be  inter- 
preted as  such-ie.,  as  the  unity  of  the  all-must  be  re- 
garded as  the  rational  order  which  makes  the  cosmos  a 
cosmos,  the  result  is  Pan-logism.    Of  this  position  we  have 
various  statements.    To  Hegel  himself  God  is  the  "  Abso- 

1  '  Evolution  of  Keligion,'  i.  153. 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


433 


lute  Idea,"  the  self-contained  and  self-completed  Thought 
which  lives  and  moves  to  its  self-realisation  in  "  all  think- 
ing things,  all  objects  of  all  thought."  To  Professor  Caird 
God  is  neither  Subject  nor  Object,  but  the  higher  term 
presupposed  in  and  containing  both.  This  Absolute  is 
obviously  Kant's  "Unity  of  Apperception,"  left  alone 
after  the  withdrawal  of  the  Kantian  Things-in-themselves, 
objective  and  subjective  alike.  For  Kant  himself  this  was 
the  mere  Form  of  experience,  the  principle  of  its  possibil- 
ity, and  was  not  to  be  substantiated  as  a  Being  outside 
experience.  If,  therefore,  we  deny  the  reality  of  Kant's 
noumenal  or  supra-experiential  world,^  there  remains  what 
was  for  Kant  himself  the  only  knowable  Eeality,  the 
rational  system  of  experience  itself.  The  "  thinking 
thing  "  disappears,  with  the  "  objects  "  of  its  thought,  in 
thought  itself;  the  real  is  the  rational;  form  is  filled 
with  content,  because  form  and  content  are  one. 

If  the  former  view  led  us  to  the  Eleatic  unity  of  inde- 
terminate Being,  this  brings  us  to  the  Heracleitean  unity 
of  mere  Becoming.  This  version  of  Hegelianism  is  indeed 
essentially  a  revival  of  Heracleiteanism.  Nothing  is,  every- 
thing becomes  ;  the  process  itself  is  the  entire  reality ;  and 
the  process  is  rational.  It  is  instructive  to  notice  how 
near  "  pan-logism  "  thus  comes  to  "  pan-phenomenalism." 
The  one  theory  interprets  the  process  rationally,  the  other 
empirically ;  but  in  both  alike  the  process  is  everythincy. 
But  Heracleiteanism  is  no  more  adequate  than  Eleaticism. 
Becoming  implies  Being,  as  Being  implies  Becoming ;  either 
alone  is  a  half-truth.     Thought  without  a  Thinker,  Piela- 

^  From  what  follows  it  will  be  seen  that  I  am  not  here  contending  for 
the  rehabilitation  of  the  Kantian  Ding-an-sich, 

2e 


■^*#»*'*''"**fcrt'****" 


^^  f  •*_^,-y~-*3;-^*;'"'5*'»^*'*'' 


^;^|^^^ff,i^rtSa»#**»**8«^^**^«*S 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


434 

tions  between   nothing,  Order  without  an   Orderer    are 
intelligible.    To  hypostatise  the  Thought^  the  Relat.o. 
the  Order,  is  the  very  acme  of  scholastic  Eeahsm.    Th 
i„,personal  and  merely  "dynamical"  conception  o^    h. 
Absolute  Eeality  is  connected  inseparably  -*  an  m 
personal  and  dynamical  view  of  man.    As  "  mmd    was  or 
Spnoza  only  "idea  corporis"  or  "idea  ide.  corporis,    a 
o'llective  name  for  the  "ideas"  or  " states," but  represen- 
in.  no  "substantial"  reality,  so  for  the  Hegehan  schoo 
s^the  Thinker  resolved  into  his  Thought.    The  subjec 
has  no  more  reality  than  the  object;  both  are  "aspects 
or  "  modes  "  of  the  Absolute  which  contams  them. 

But  if,  as  I  have  tried  to  maintain,^  we  cannot  resolve 
the  finite  subject  into   its  experience,  whether  mtellec- 
t'al  or  moral,'no  more  can  we  identify  the  A  solute  w.  h 
experience,  or  with  "  the  process  of  the  actual.       The 
very  conception  of  Experience  implies  a  reference  to  a 
Subject  or  Self,  permanent  amid  its  ceaseless  flux,  and 
never  ceasing  to  distinguish  itself,  as  one  and  rdentical 
from  the  changing  manifold  of  that  expenence.    That  the 
ultimate  Eeality  should  be  found  by  transcendental  Ideal, 
ism  in  Experience  itself  is   one  more  example  of   how, 
in  the  history  of  thought,  philosophical   extremes  may 

""' n'  however,  Hegelianism  is  to  maintain  itself  as  an 
idealistic  and  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  umverse.  it 
is  obvious  that  it  must  be  by  accepting  the  subject  as  a 
„.ore  adequate  exponent  of  the  ultimate  dmne  Eeahty 
than  the  object.  Hegel  himself  regarded  God  as  the 
Absolute   Subject,  and  conceived  the   grand  superiority 

1  Pp.  366  fE. 


THE    PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


435 


of  his  system  to  Spinozism  to  lie  in  the  substitution  of 
"  Subject "  for  "  Substance."  It  is  indeed  the  consequence 
of  Hegel's  evolutionary  view  of  the  universe,  that  in  the 
later  stage,  that  of  human  Self-consciousness,  the  manifes- 
tation of  ultimate  Eeality  should  be  more  adequate  than 
at  the  earlier  stage  of  mere  Nature.  And  it  is  of  the 
essence  of  Idealism,  as  distinguished  from  Spinozism,  to 
perceive  that  spirit  and  nature,  thought  and  extension, 
subject  and  object,  are  not  co-ordinate,  but  that  the  former 
always  "  overlaps  "  the  latter.  Accordingly  we  find  Green 
characterising  God  as  the  "  Eternal  Self "  or  "  Self-con- 
sciousness," and  many  Hegelians  professing  Theism  or  the 
doctrine  of  divine  Personality.  Professor  Caird,  for  ex- 
ample, holds  that  on  the  basis  of  Absolute  Idealism  "  we 
can  think  of  God — as  He  must  be  thought  of — as  the 
principle  of  unity  in  all  things,  and  yet  conceive  Him 
as  a  self-conscious,  self-determining  Being."  ^ 

But  it  is  a  pretty  obvious  deduction  from  Absolute 
Idealism  that  if  God  he  Subject,  His  absoluteness  pre- 
cludes the  existence  of  any  other  subjects  or  any  relation 
to  them.  Accordingly  the  finite  subject  is  regarded  by 
Green  as  the  "  reproduction  in  time  "  of  the  one  Eternal 
Self.  Professor  Caird  also  maintains  explicitly  the  entire 
immanence  of  God  in  man  as  well  as  in  Nature,  and  the 
resulting  unity  of  God  with  man.  To  deny  that  identity, 
he  insists,  is  to  rest  in  an  external  view  of  the  universe, 
to  stop  short  of  the  divine  Unity.  The  immanence  of  God 
precludes  his  transcendence ;  his  unity  with  man  as  well 
as  with  nature  makes  impossible  that  separateness  of  being, 
whether  in  him  or  in  ourselves,  which  we  are  accustomed 

^  '  Evolution  of  Religion,'  ii.  82. 


.,^^,^l^,,.,,,^j^j^^^^^„-.,^*y-*«!^yggp^-^|J^.5^;^^ 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


I 


436 

U,  call  Personality.    "It  is  e^-lly  i-possible  *-  ^  to 

recall  or  to  maintain  the  attitude  of  mind  of  the  puie 

ntCists    for   whom    God  was    merely   one    subject 
monotheists,   lor    wuuu  above 

among  other  subjects ;  and  though  httcd  h^.^h  above 
Tem  the  source  of  all  their  life,  was  yet  related  to  them 
tTn  external  and  independent  will.  Our  idea  of  God 
as  an  cxici  external  to  anything, 

will  not  let  us  conceive  of  Him  as  externa  y 

least  of  all  to  the  spirits  who  are  made  in  His  ima    , 
ani  who  live  and  move  and  have  their  being  m  Him. 
We    annot,  therefore,  avoid  thinking  of  God  as  a  pnn- 
Iple  who  is  within  us  as  He  is  without  us.  present  in 
df  consciousness  as  in  consciousness,  the  P-s^vpposition 
;    life,  and  the  end  of  all."  ^     On  the  tl-y  of  Abs    u^^ 
Idealism,  on  the  other  hand,  "  it  becomes  VO^-^^^^^^ 
of  man  as  a  '  partaker  in  the  divine  nature,  and  the^^fore 
as  a  self-conscious  and   self-determming  spirt,  without 
:  ftL  him  with  an  absolute  individuality  which  would 
ft  him  off  from   all   union  and  communion  with  his 
fellow-creatures  and  with  God."  ^ 

These  statements,  while  they  contain  mos    import  n 
and  much -needed  truth,  also  reveal  the  -  -e  of^^e 
reasoning  upon  which  the  central  position  of  Hegeliaa 
Tdelm^ests.    That  position,  it  seems  to  m.  denves  i 
chief  plausibility  from  the  pressmg  into  the  service  ot 
phUsoThic  thought  of  the  spatial  metaphor  which  underl^s 
such  terms  as  "  externality,"  "  relation,"  "  separation,    &c. 
ThLs  which  are  external  to  one  another,  related  to  one 
another  separated  from  one  another  in  space,  are  not  on 
and  the'  same,  but  manifold  and  different.    But  the  spatial 
letaphor  must  not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that,  in  investigat- 


1  Op.  city  ii.  72. 


2  Ibid. ,  ii.  84. 


THE    PROBLEM    OF   GOD. 


437 


ing  the  relation  of  man  to  God,  we  are  dealing  not  with 
spatial  but  with  spiritual  existence ;  and  in  the  spiritual 
sphere  it  does  not  follow  that  a  real  separateness  of  being, 
a  real  relation  between  man  and  God,  is  fatal  to  the  unity 
of  the  terms  in  question.  "  When  we  speak  of  God  all 
idols  of  space  and  time  must  be  forgotten,  or  our  best 
labour  is  in  vain."  ^  The  Hegehan  unity  is  too  easy ;  its 
synthesis  of  the  elements  of  reality — human  and  divine 
—  is  too  rapid.  Its  conception  of  God  is  the  result  of 
the  exclusive  intellectualism  of  its  view  of  the  universe. 
From  the  standpoint  of  the  intellect,  such  a  synthesis 
might  conceivably  be  satisfactory.  But  Will  and  Feeling 
are  factors  of  human  reality,  no  less  than  Intellect ;  and 
from  the  point  of  view  of  Will  and  Feeling  we  cannot 
unify,  in  the  sense  of  identifying,  man  with  God.  For 
the  Hegelian,  as  for  the  Spinozist,  the  process  of  the 
universe  is  one.  But  that  is  because  the  Hegelian  view  is, 
no  less  than  the  Spinozistic,  a  purely  intellectual  view,  and 
its  unity  is  therefore  the  unity  of  thought,  not  the  unity  of 
feeling  and  will.  The  process  of  thought  might  conceiv- 
ably be  one  in  God  and  in  man ;  the  process  of  will  and 
feeling  is  not  one.  It  is  the  very  nature  of  Will  to 
separate,  to  substantiate,  if  also  to  relate,  its  possessors ; 
and,  as  a  moral  being,  man  claims  for  himself  a  moral 
sphere  of  freedom  and  independent  Self-hood. 

It  is  this  inahenable  human  quality  of  freedom,  of 
independent  moral  initiation,  that  dictates  the  true  moral 
relation  of  man  to  God.  It  is  not  the  intellectual  burden 
of  finitude,  but  the  moral  burden  of  evil,  that  sends  man 
beyond  himself  to  God ;  and  the  moral  relation  of  man  to 

1  Herder,  quoted  by  Knight,  'Aspects  of  Theism,'  161. . 


^-^^m^-^-mtm^iM^y:,  ■*■*"  *'•'" 


I 


438  METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 

God  is  iu  its  essence  a  personal  relation-a  relation  of 
Will     "  Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  Thine.      It 
we  absolutely  unify  or  identify  God  and  man,  the  ethical 
attitude,  which  is  one  of  relation,  not  of  ide^iMy,  becomes 
impossible.     In  avoiding  the  evils  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
divine  transcendence,  Hegelianism  falls  into  the  no  less 
serious  evils  of  the  doctrine  of  the  mere  immanence  of 
God      Morality  implies,  in  the  last  analysis,  a  relation 
between  man  and  God,  "  union  and  communion  of  the 
human  will  with  the  divine  Will"  ;  not  such  a  unity  and 
identity  of  man  and  God  as  must  mean  the  dissolution  of 
all  relation  between  them.     It  is  the  spiritual  difference 
or  separateness  of  being  that  gives  the  union  its  entire 
moral  and  religious  significance ;  it  is  the  very  possibility 
of  sayincr  "  I  will "  that  gives  its  infinite  value  to  man  s 
"  Not  my  will,  but  Thine,  be  done."     A  philosophy  which 
includes  the  life  of  man  in  the  one  divine  process  of 
the  universe,  and  makes  his  life,  like  nature's,  simply  a 
"  reproduction  "  of  the  life  of  God,  may  perhaps  be  intel- 
lectually satisfying,  but  it  cuts  away  the  roots  of  morality, 
and  of  "  ethical  religion." 

The  greatest  strain  comes  upon  such  a  umtary  view 
^vhen  it  meets  the  problem  of  evil.  Is  evil  an  element  in 
the  life  of  God  ?  If  so,  it  must  cease  to  be  real  evil,  and 
this  is  precisely  Professor  Caird's  solution.  He  invokes 
the  sanction  of  Christianity  in  favour  of  such  a  thoroughly 
optimistic  interpretation  of  moral  evil.  The  chai^cteristic 
truth  of  the  Christian  religion  he  takes  to  be  "  tlie  omni- 
potence of  good."  But,  in  order  to  the  perfect  develop- 
ment of  goodness,  evil  must  be  struggled  with  and  over- 
come     Goodness  is,  in  its  very  essence,  deliverance  from 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


439 


evil;  and  "with  the  increasing  pressure  of  the  conflict, 
and  the  orowing  consciousness  of  the  evil  with  which  he 
has  to  contend,  there  comes  a  deepening  sense  of  the 
necessity  for  such  a  conflict  with  evil,  and  of  all  the 
suffering  it  brings  with  it,  to  the  highest  triumph  of 
good."i  Thus,  in  the  supreme  conflict  of  evil  with 
goodness,  "  even  the  powers  that  opposed  and  persecuted 
the  good  were  secretly  its  instruments,  and  even  the 
malice  and  hatred  of  men  were  no  real  hindrances,  but 
rather  the  opportunities  required  for  its  manifestation."  '^ 
"  Nay,  even  sin  itself,  as  its  utmost  power  is  shown  only 
under  the  Law — which  produces  a  distinct  consciousness 
of  sin,  and  so  prepares  the  way  for  the  negation  of  it  and 
for  the  reception  of  a  new  principle  of  life — even  sin 
itself,  from  this  point  of  view,  is  seen  to  be  part  of  the 
divine  order." ^  "The  intensification  of  sin,  due  to  the 
consciousness  of  it  awakened  by  the  Law,"  works  out 
the  greater  triumph  of  the  good.  For  while  "  sin  is  not 
sin  in  the  deepest  sense  till  it  is  conscious,  the  sin  of  one 
who  knows  the  divine  law  he  breaks ;  yet  just  this  very 
consciousness,  while  it  deepens  the  sin,  in  another  way 
prepares  for  its  extinction."* 

This  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil  seems  again  too 
rapid  and  easy.  I  cannot  see  how,  on  the  unitary  theory, 
evil  is  a  necessary  element  in  the  process  of  the  good; 
how,  in  such  a  universe  as  Professor  Caird's,  the  evil 
which  is  an  indubitable  fact  of  moral  experience,  should 
occur;  how  human  sin  can  be  a  part  or  stage  of  the 
necessary  process  of  the  divine  life;  how  this  unreason 


1  'Evolution  of  Religion,'  139. 
3  Ibid.,  207. 


2  Ibid.,  165. 
*  Ibid.,  208. 


*#iP([»-*-««Be*|M*»:''" 


-i»kf-m 


440 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


should  infect  a  universe  which  is  rational  through  and 
through.     The  explanation  offered  may  be  satisfactory  as 
an  ex'planation  of  how  the  knowledge  of  evil  is  instru- 
mental to  the  life  of  goodness ;  but  it  is  not  satisfactory 
as  an  explanation  of  the  existence  of  evil,  it  does  not  justify 
the  occurrence  of  evil  as  a  real  fact  in  the  universe.     We 
can  see  how  evil,  once  there,  is  utiUsed  and  converted  into 
an  instrument  of  goodness ;  but  why  evil  should  be  there 
at  all,  we  do  not  see.     Even  if  we  grant  the  necessity  of 
evil  as  affording  an  opportunity  for  the  choice  of  the  good, 
still  the  existence  of  evil,  that  is,  the  fact  that  the  good 
is  not  chosen,  is  left  out  of  the  explanation.     And  m 
every  case  of  moral  evil  we  have   such  a  misdirection 
of  the  will.     To  make  evil  only  a  necessary  element  in 
the  life  of  goodness  seems  to  me  to  imperil,  if  not  to 
destroy,  the  reality  of  the  moral  life  both  on  its  good  and 
on  its  evil  side.     The  earnestness  of  that  life,  whether 
in  its  bitterness  or  in  its  joy,  finds  no  adequate  interpre- 
tation  in  a  theory  which  makes  it  in  aU  its  parts  and 
phases  absolutely  and  simply  "necessary." 

The  true  Absolute  must  contain,  instead  of  abohshmg, 
relations ;  the  true  Monism  must  include,  instead  of  ex- 
cluding. Pluralism.     A  One  which,  like  Spinoza's  "  Sub- 
stance''' or  the  Hegelian  Absolute,  does  not  enable  us  to 
think  the  Many,  cannot  be  the  true  One,  the  unity  of  the 
manifold.     The   one  Subject  which  negates  all   subjects 
is  hardly  better  than  the  one  Substance  which  negates 
all    substances.     The    true    unity    must    be    ethical,  as 
well  as  intellectual;    and  an  ethical  unity  implies  dis- 
tinctness  of  being  and  activity.    To  deify  man  is  as  illegit- 
imate as  to  naturalise  him.     But  morality  is  the  medium 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


441 


of  union,  as  well  as  of  separation,  between  man  and  God. 
Will  unites,  as  well  as  separates,  its  possessors.  "  Barriers 
exist  only  for  the  world  of  bodies;  it  is  the  privilege 
of  minds  to  penetrate  each  other  without  confusion  with 
one  another.  In  communion  with  God  we  are  one  with 
Him,  and  yet  we  maintain  our  personality."  ^  The  very 
surrender  of  the  finite  will  to  the  infinite  is  itself  an  act 
of  will ;  neither  morality  nor  ethical  religion  is  self-less 
or  impersonal. 


12.  Hefrelianism,  we  have  seen,  finds  it  necessary,  in  luteiiect- 

„.,,..,,.!  «   ,  1       ualism  and 

order  to  the  establishment  of  an  intelligible  theory  ot  tne  Moraiism: 
universe,  to  conceive  God  in  terms  of  the  subject  rather  wfiL 
than  in  terms  of  the  object ;  it  is,  to  this  extent,  anthro- 
pomorphic.    But  if  we  are  to  find  the  key  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  Absolute  in  the  subject  rather  than  in 
the  object,  with  what  right  do  we  exclude  the  ethical 
and  emotional  elements  of  the  subject's  life,  and  retain 
onlv   the   intellectual  ?      Intellectualism,   Gnosticism,   or 
pure  Kationalism  must  always  prove  itself  an  inadequate 
exposition  of  a  universe  which  includes  the  human  sub- 
ject, and  must  continue  to  call  forth  Moraiism  or  the 
philosophy  of  Will  and  Emotion  as  its  needed  comple- 
ment.     For  while,  as  an  intellectual  being,  man  might 
resolve  himself  into  unity  with  God,  and  regard  himself 
as  a  mere  mode  or  aspect  of  the  one  Subject,  a  moral 
being  must "  round  itself  to  a  separate  whole."    The  reality 
of  the  moral  life  implies  man's  independence  of  God  as 
well  as  of  Nature,  and  forces  upon  him,  to  that  extent,  a 
pluralistic  rather  than  a  monistic  view  of  the  universe. 

iRicardou,  '  De  I'ldeal,' 143. 


_..#m!;^i^^  "' 


^n^^" 


442  METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 

And  if  a  moral  theology  is  no  less  legitimate  than  an 
intellectual  theology,  it  follows  that  we   may  interpret 
G  d  not  merely  as  Thought,  but  as  Will.     It  was  wr^ 
a  true  insight  that  Aristotle  and  the  fhoolmen  thougl^ 
of  God  as  "  pure  activity."      Bn  Anfang  war  du  That 
as  true  as  Im  Anfang  war  das  Wort.     But  we  must  no 
Ire  separate  Will  from  Intelligence  than  Intelhgenc 
from  Will.    Will,  separated  from  Intelligence,  would  not 
be  Will     What  Schopenhauer  calls  "  Will "  is  only  blmd 
brute  Force;   its  activity  is  necessarily  disastrous,  and 
what  it  does  has  to  be  undone  when  Intelligence  is  born. 
But  Aristotle's  ultimate  Reality  is  the  unity  of  mtelbgence 
and  will ;  the  divine  life  is  for  him  identical  in  its  essence 
with!  ideal  life  of  man,-rational  activity.    Per  ectron 
of  will  implies  perfection  of  intelligence,  and  perfection 
of  intelli^^ence  and  will  implies  also  emotional  pertection 
In  us,  it°is  true,  "  feeling,  thought,  and  volition  have  al 
defects  which    suggest  something    higher.  But 

"  something  higher  "  which  these  defects  suggest  is  soine- 
thinc^  higher  in  the  same  hind,  the  perfection  of  these 

elenLts:  their  harmonious  -^^  J^^^'^^l^s  ,:: 
perfect  Personality,  to  conceive  the  divme  Life  as  the 
Lmonious  activity  of  perfect  Will  informed  by  perfect 
Intelligence  and  manifested  in  the  Feeling  of  this  har- 
n'o^  Is  to  conceive  God  as  like  ourselves,  but  with  our 
human  limitations  removed,  and  to  conceive  our  relation 
to  God  as  a  moral  and  emotional,  and  not  merely  as  an 

intellectual  relation.  •  -,     i  „„^  „,nrP 

If  therefore,  we  are  to  maintain  a  spiritual,  and  more 

particularly  an  ethical,  view  of  the  universe,  we  must  be 

1  F.  H.  Bradley,  '  Appearance  and  Reality,'  182. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


443 


in  earnest  with  the  conception  of  Personality.     Hegelian- 
ism  is  altogether  too  vague  in  its  utterances  here.    Accord- 
ing to  the  latest  exposition  of  that  philosophy,  that  of  Mr 
Bradley,  God  is  to  he  conceived  as  "  super-personal"  rather 
than  as  "  impersonal."     "  It  is  better  to  affirm  personality 
than  to  call  the  Absolute  impersonal.     But  neither  mis- 
take shall  be  necessary.     The  Absolute  stands  above,  and 
not  below,  its  internal  distinctions.     It  does  not  reject 
them,  but  it  includes  them   as   elements  in  its  fulness. 
To  speak  in  concrete  language,  it  is  not  the  indifference 
but  the  concrete  identity  of  all  extremes.     But  it  is  better 
in  this  connection  to  call  it  super-personal."^      Yet  Mi 
Bradley  closes  his  book  with  the  statement  that,  accord- 
ing to  "  the  essential  message  of  Hegel,  outside  of  spirit 
there  is  not,  and  there  cannot  be,  any  reality,  and  the 
more  anything  is  spiritual,  so  much  the  more  is  it  verit- 
ably real."  2     But  is  not  spirit  essentially  personal,  and 
must  we  not  think  of  the  Infinite  Spirit  rather  as  conqMe 
Personality  than  as  m^^r-personal  ? 

It  is  objected  that  to  conceive  God  as  a  Person  is  to 
contradict  His  infinity.  "  The  Deity  which  they  want  is 
of  course  finite,— a  person  much  like  themselves,  with 
thou£rhts  and  feelinf^s  limited  and  mutable  in  the  process 
of  time.  ...  Of  course  for  us  to  ask  seriously  if  the 
Absolute  can  be  personal  in  such  a  way  would  be  quite 
absurd."  ^  "  For  me  a  person  is  finite  or  is  meaningless."  * 
"  Once  give  up  your  finite  and  mutable  person,  and  you 
have  parted  with  everything  which,  for  you,  makes  per- 
sonality important.  ...     For  me  it  is  sufficient  to  know, 


1  'Appearance  and  Reality,'  533. 
'^  Op.  cit.,  532. 


2  Ibid.,  552. 
■*  Loc,  cit. 


444  METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 

on   one  side,  that  the  Absolute  is  not  a  finite  person. 
Whether  on  the  other  side,  personality  in  some  eviscer- 
ated remnant  of  sense  can  be  applied  to  it    is  a  ques- 
tion intellectually  unimportant  and  practically  triflin 
Such  statements  as  these-and  they  are  typical  of  the 
criticism  constantly  made  upon  ethical  Theism-seem  to 
me  to  rest  upon  the  ambiguity  of  the  term  Personality. 
When  we  think  of  Personality  as  essentially  finite,  we 
are   confounding   Personality  with    Individuality.      T^ie 
individual  is  essentially  finite,  the  person  is  essentially 
infinite.     So  far  is  Personality  from  contradicting  the  In- 
finite, that,  as  Lotze  says,^  "  only  the  Infinite  is  completely 
personal"    If  we  think  of  God  as  leing  all  that  we  ought 
to  be,  as  the  Reality  of  the  moral  Ideal,  must  we  not  say 
that,  as  we  gradually  constitute  our  Personality,  we  are 
tracing  the  divine  image  in  ourselves,  and  learning  more 
fully  the  very  nature  of  God?    "The  Absolute  is  not  a 
finite  person;"  but  to  say  that  personality  is  necessarily 
"  finite  "  "  with  thoughts  and  feelings  limited  and  mutable 
in  the'  process  of  time,"  is  to  beg  the  whole  question  at 
issue.     The  question  just  is  whether  the  "infinite     and 
the  "  personal "  are,  or  are  not,  contradictory  conceptions. 
The  essentially  unethical  character  of  an  impersonal  or 
super-personal  universe  is  finely  suggested  by  Professor 
Eoyce  in  a  little  fable  of  his  own  invention :  "  And  so  a 
worst  we  are  like  a  child  who  has  come  to  the  palace  of 
the  king  on  the  day  of  his  wedding,  bearing  roses  as  a 
cift  to  grace  the  feast.    For  the  child,  waiting  innocenrty 
to  see  whether  the  king  will  not  appear  and  praise  the 

1  'Appearance  and  Reality,'  533. 

2  '  Philosophy  of  Religion,'  ch.  iv.  §  41. 


% 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    GOD. 


445 


welcome  flowers,  grows  at  last  weary  with  watching  all 
day  and  with  listening  to  harsh  words  outside  the  palace 
gate  amid  the  jostling  crowd.     And  so  in  the  evening  it 
falls  asleep  beneath  the  great  dark  walls,  unseen  and  for- 
gotten ;  and  the  withering  roses  by  and  by  fall  from  its 
kp,  and  are  scattered  by  the  wind  into  the  dusty  highway, 
there  to  be  trodden  under  foot  and  destroyed.     Yet  all 
that  happens  only  because  there  are  infinitely  fairer  treas- 
ures within  the   palace    than   the  ignorant   child   could 
bring.     The  king  knows  of  this— yes,  and  of  ten  thousand 
other  proffered  gifts  of  loyal  subjects.     But  he  needs  them 
not.     Kather  are  all  things  from  eternity  his  own."  ^ 

Nay,  but  to  the  very  palace  of  the  King  every  child  of 
man  can  bring  a  gift  and  treasure  which  He  will  not  de- 
spise—the priceless  gift  of  a  free  and  loving  service,  the 
treasure,  more  precious  than  all  besides,  of  a  will  touched 
to  goodness.  We  cannot  believe  that  man's  good  and  evil 
are'^indifferent  to  God,  that  evil  is  only  "  an  element,  and 
a  necessary  element,  in  the  total  goodness  of  the  Universal 
Will,"  that  in  God  our  "  separateness  is  destroyed,"  and 
with'  our  separateness  our  "  sin,"  that  our  goodness  fol- 
lows, like  our  sin,  from  ^' the  necessity  of  the  divine 
nature."  In  our  good,  as  in  our  evil,  we  feel  that  our 
life  is  our  own,  personal,  separate  from  God  as  it  is 
separate  from  Nature,  our  own-to  give  to  Him  who  gave 
it  to  us,  or  to  withhold  even  from  Him. 

Instead  of  surrendering  the  idea  of  Personality,  we  must 
cherish  it,  therefore,  as  the  only  key  to  the  moral  and 
religious  life.  It  is  the  hard-won  result  of  long  experi- 
ence  and  deep  reflection.     The  depth  and  spirituality  of 

1  '  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy.' 


447 


446 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


the  conception  of  God  have  grown  with  the  growth  of  the 
idea  of  human  personality.     It  is  the  presence  and  opera- 
tion of  this  idea  that  distinguishes  Christianity  from  other 
religions,  that  makes  Hebraism  a  religion,  while  the  lack 
of  it  makes  Hellenism  hardly  more  than  a  mythology. 
As  man  has  learned  to  know  himself,  he  has  advanced  in 
the  knowledge  of  God.     Our  age  is  the  age  of  science,  its 
prevailing  spirit  is  what  we  may  call  the  "  intellectuahsm 
of  the  scientific  mind.     Its  ambition  is  to  understand,  and 
to  understand  Nature.     As  in  the  earliest  age  of  Greek 
philosophy,  the  eye  of  thought  is  directed  outward.    The 
ta==k  is  a  areat  one ;  no  wonder  that  the  energies  of  the 
time  are  wellnigh  exhausted  by  it.    But,  sooner  or  later, 
the  view  must  be  turned  again  inwards,  and  when  it  is, 
the  eternal  spiritual  realities  will  be  found  there  still,  and 
the  lessons  which  were  not  written  upon  the  face  of  Na- 
ture will  be  found  graven  on  the  "  living  tablets "  of  the 
human  heart.     Man  is  not  all  intellect ;  and  if  intellect 
now  thrives  at  the  expense  of  the  rest  of  his  nature,  as 
in  the  Middle  Ages  intellect  was  itself  in  large  measure 
starved  and  sacrificed  that  morality  and  religion  might 
develop,  it  only  means  that  the  "  education  of  the  human 
race "  is  conducted,  like  the  education  of  the  individual, 
bit  by  bit,  step  by  step.     But  the  education  cannot  stop 
until,  in  insight  as  in  life,  humanity  has  attained  the 
measure  of  its  divine  perfection. 


CHAPTEE    III. 

THE  PROBLEM   OF   IMMORTALITY. 

1    The  third  postulate  of  morality,  according  to  Kant,  is  The^aiter- 
the  immortality  of  the  moral  being.     If  we  have  found  thought. 
it  impossible  to  demonstrate  the  Freedom  of  the  Will  and 
the  existence  of  God,  as  the  term  demonstration  is  used 
in  the  exact  sciences,  we   need  not  hope  to  succeed  m 
demonstrating  Immortality.      All  that  we  need  attempt 
is  to  understand  the  bearing  of  our  view  of  man's  nature 
and  life   upon   the   question   of  his   destiny.     For  the 
problem  of  the  ultimate  issues  of  the  moral  life  is   as 
inevitable  as  the  problems  of  its  origin  and  its  relations 
to  the  universal  Eeality,  nor  can  the  first  question  be 
separated  from  the  other  two.    And  if,  in  a  sense,  moral- 
ity may  be  said  to  depend  upon  immortality,  m  another 
sense  and,  in   Aristotle's  phrase,  "  for  us "  immortality 
must  be  said  to  depend  upon  morality.     Our  answer  to 
the  question.  What  is  the  destiny  of  man  ?  must  depend 
upon  our   answer   to   the   previous  questions.  What  is 
man  ?  and  What  is  his  proper  life  as  man  ?     Our  answer 
to  the  question  whether  the  moral  life  points  to  immor- 
tality as  the  destiny  of  the  moral  being,  depends  upon  our 


448 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


interpretation  of  morality.  And  ultimately  destiny,  like 
life,  must  depend  upon  the  nature  of  the  being  whose 
life  and  destiny  we  are  considering.  Hence  it  is  that  we 
do  not  generally  find  the  problem  of  immortality  dis- 
cussed with  anything  like  the  same  fulness  or  explicit- 
ness  as  the  other  problems  we  have  been  considering. 
The  answer  to  this  question  is  contained  in  the  answers 
to  the  others ;  the  position  taken  here  is  a  corollary  or 
deduction  from  the  positions  already  taken  on  the  nature 
of  the  moral  being  and  the  consequent  nature  of  the 
Moral  Ideal.  Two  main  lines  divide  philosophical  opin- 
ion. The  affirmation  or  denial  of  immortality  follows  in 
the  first  place  from  the  acceptance,  respectively,  of  an 
idealistic  and  transcendental,  or  of  a  naturalistic  and  em- 
pirical, interpretation  of  morality.  If  man  is  a  merely 
natural  being,  nature's  destiny  must  be  his  also;  if  the 
Ideal  of  his  life  does  not  transcend  his  present  experience, 
the  present  life  must  be  his  all-in-all.  But,  in  the  second 
place,  the  affirmation  or  denial  of  immortality  follows 
from  the  acceptance  or  the  rejection  of  personality  as  the 
key  to  the  interpretation  of  man's  nature  and  life.  Pan- 
theism has  not,  any  more  than  Naturalism,  a  place  for 
personal  immortality,  because  it  has  no  place  for  person- 
ality. In  Spinozism  and  Hegelianism ,  as  truly  as  in  Sen- 
sationalism, there  is  no  survival  of  the  Self  because  there 
is  no  Self  to  survive.  Let  us  glance  in  turn  at  these 
alternatives  of  thought :  our  own  position  has  been  suffi- 
ciently foreshadowed  in  the  preceding  discussion. 

Immortal-        2.  The  implication  of  Immortality  in  a  transcendental 
implication  view  of  the  moral  life  is  most  explicitly  stated  by  Kant. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    IMMORTALITY. 


449 


The  "  Thou  shalt "  of  moral  law  implies  "  Thou  canst,"  and  of  Morai- 
an  infinite  "  Thou  shalt "  implies  an  infinite  ability  to  ful- 
fil it.  But  an  infinite  Moral  Ideal  cannot  be  realised  in 
finite  time ;  it  follows  that  man,  as  the  subject  of  such 
an  Ideal,  must  have  infinite  time  for  the  task  of  its  realis- 
ation. A  man  is  immortal  till  his  work  is  done,  and  the 
work  of  man  as  a  moral  being  is  never  done.^  It  is  true 
that  Kant  states  this  argument  in  the  negative  form  re- 
quired by  his  ethical  theory.  The  Moral  Ideal  is  for  him 
a  life  of  pure  reason  in  which  the  surd  of  sensibility  has 
been  eliminated,  and  it  is  the  eternal  presence  of  this 
fatal  surd  which  constitutes  the  Kantian  argument  for 
Immortality.  The  moral  task  is  not  accomplished  till  this 
surd  has  disappeared,  but  it  never  disappears  from  the 
life  of  man,  mixed  as  his  nature  is  of  reason  and  sensi- 
bility ;  therefore  the  task  must  always  remain,  and,  with 
the  task,  the  possibility  of  its  accomplishment.  The 
essence  of  the  argument,  however,  is  independent  of  this 
particular  view  of  the  ethical  life,  and  Kant's  own  deeper 
argument  for  Immortality  we  might  consistently  accept. 
Kant's  real  deduction  of  Immortality  is  from  the  tran- 
scendental source  and  significance  of  the  Moral  Ideal. 
Faithfulness  to  the  true  Self  means  that  we  live  as  if 
we  were  immortal ;  in  the  moral  life  we  constitute  our- 
selves heirs  of  immortality  by  living  the  life  of  immortal 
or  eternal  beings.  Man's  true  life  is  not,  like  the  ani- 
mal's, a  life  in  time ;  its  law  issues  from  a  world  beyond 
"  our  bourne  of  Time  and  Place,"  from  a  sphere  "  where 
time  and  space  are  not."  In  every  moral  act,  therefore, 
man  transcends  the  limits  of  the  present  life,  and  becomes 

.  1  Of.  Caird,  '  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant,'  Bk.  ii.  ch.  5. 

2f 


450 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


already  a  citizen  of  an  eternal  world.  He  has  not  to 
wait  for  his  Immortality ;  it  broods  over  him  even  in  the 
present,  it  is  the  very  atmosphere  of  his  life  as  a  moral 
being.  This  is  an  argument  as  old  as  Plato  and  Aristotle ; 
it  is  the  real  argument  for  Immortality.  Man  is,  as  such, 
an  "  eternal  being  "  ;  he  not  only  can,  but  77iust  transcend 
time  in  every  act  of  his  moral  life.  The  law  of  his  life 
comes  from  that  higher  sphere,  to  which,  in  his  essential 
being,  he  belongs.  Is  he  called  to  an  illusory  task— to 
live  as  an  immortal  while  in  reality  he  is  only  mortal ; 
to  conduct  himself  as  a  citizen  of  eternity  while  in  reality 
he  is  only  a  denizen  of  time  ?  The  strenuous  and  ideal- 
istic moral  temper  is  rooted  in  the  conviction  of  the 
eternal  meaning  of  this  life  in  time,  and  is  willing  to 
stake  everything  on  this  great  Peradventure.  Nay,  it  is 
not  to  it  a  Peradventure,  but  a  silent  certainty,  under 
whose  constraining  power  considerations  of  time  are  scorned 
as  mere  irrelevancies.  Such  a  life  Browning  has  pictured 
in  "The  Grammarian's  Funeral."  He  has  chosen  the 
scholar's  devotion  to  his  ideal,  but  that  is  only  a  type 
of  what  the  good  life  always  is— a  life  "  not  for  the  day, 
but  for  the  day  to  come,"  a  life  that  knows  it  has  the 
leisure  of  eternity  for  the  execution  of  its  eternal  tasks.^ 

1  "  others  mistrust  and  say,  '  But  time  escapes  ! 

Live  now  or  never  ! ' 
He  said,  '  What's  time?    Leave  Now  for  dogs  and  apes, 

Man  has  Forever  ! ' 
Was  it  not  great?  did  not  he  throw  on  God 

(He  loves  the  burthen  !)— 
God's  task  to  make  the  heavenly  period 

Perfect  the  earthen  ?  " 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  two  great  poets  of  our  time— Tennyson  and 
Browning— have  been  almost  equally  fascinated  by  this  problem,  and  have 
dealt  with  it  so  philosophically  that  quotations  might  be  multiplied  almost 
indefinitely  from  their  poems,  especially  those  of  Browning. 


THE   PEOBLEM   OF   IMMORTALITY. 


451 


There  is  surely  a  great  ethical  truth,  if  only  one  side 
of  the  truth,  in  the  Platonic  and  Mystic,  the  Medieval 
and  the  Kantian,  view  of  Time  as  the  antechamber  to 
Eternity,  of  this  life  as  a  pilgrimage,  a  place  of  tabernac- 
ling, an  inn  where  we  abide  for  a  night,  to  go  farther  on 
the  morrow — nay,  even  as  the  prison-house  of  the  eternal 
spirit,  from  which  it  must  take  its  flight  to  its  home  in 
the  unseen  and  eternal  world  whence  it  has  come  and 
where  its  real  interests  and  concerns  are.  Everything 
perishes  with  the  using — everything  but  man,  the  spec- 
tator of  the  universal  change  and  passing  away,  who 
feels  amid  it  all  that  he  is  living  a  life  which  has  no 
essential  relation  to  change  or  death,  a  life  which  these 
things  do  not  touch.  For  is  he  not  building  in  the 
eternal  world  of  his  own  spirit  a  "  house  not  made  with 
hands"  of  virtuous  character,  which  no  storms  of  time 
can  reach  or  move  from  its  foundation  ?" 

"  Sweet  spring,  full  of  sweet  days  and  roses, 
A  box  whose  sweets  compacted  lie, 
My  music  shows  ye  have  your  closes, 

And  all  must  die. 
Only  a  sweet  and  virtuous  soul 
Like  seasoned  timber  never  gives  ; 
But  though  the  whole  world  turn  to  coal, 

Then  chiefly  lives." 

The  refusal  of  man  to  accept  Time  as  the  measure  of 
his  life's  possibility  manifests  itself  in  the  essentially 
prophetic  nature  of  the  moral  consciousness.  This  is  the 
meaning  of  progress,  the  distinctive  attribute  of  human 
life.  The  present  life,  man  feels  to  the  end,  is  a  probation, 
a  school  where  his  spirit  is  learning  lessons  which  shall 


452 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


serve  it  after  it  has  passed  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
school.  "  No  end  of  learning,"  and  no  time  here  to  put 
the  lessons  into  execution.  Can  it  be  that  just  when  we 
have  learned  our  lesson  best,  when  we  have  best  mastered 
the  "  proper  craft "  of  living,  the  tool  is  dashed  from  our 
hands,  the  activity  for  which  we  have  been  preparing  is 
shut  against  us ;  that  just  when,  through  the  illumination 
of  life's  experience,  the  true  meaning  of  life  becomes  most 
clearly  visible,  that  insight  shall  prove  futile  ? 

"  We  spend  our  lives  in  learning  pilotage, 
And  grow  good  steersmen  when  the  vessel's  crank  ! " 

Shall  we  not  be  promoted  to  a  nobler  craft  when  at  last 
we  have  mastered  something   of   the  currents  of  ''that 
immortal  sea "  ?     There  is  no  fruition  and  fulfilment,  no 
perfect  realisation,  in  this  life,  of  this  life's  Purpose.     Life 
is  a  preparation,  a  discipline,  an  education  of  the  moral 
being.     Is  all  this  elaborate  and  painful  work  of  moral 
education  to  be  undone  ?     Is  death  the  consummation  of 
our  life,  its  grand  catastrophe  and  dSnoument?     Were 
not  this  Failure  absolute  and  supreme,  Failure  at  the  heart 
of  things  ?  as  if  the  universe  could  not  support  the  moral 
life  to  which  it  had  given  birth,  as  if  here  it  failed  and 
could  not  realise  its  own  end  ?     Against  such  a  contradic- 
tion between  man's  being  and  his  destiny,  between  the 
magnitude  of  his  task  and  the  narrow  limits  set  to  its 
execution,  our  whole  moral  nature  rises  in  protest.     If  we 
regard  man  as  a  merely  natural  being,  part  and  product 
of  Nature,  we  can  well  believe  that  for  him  too  death  is 
the   end;   but  if  we   regard  him   as   for  ever   Nature's 
superior,  as  made  in  the  divine  likeness  and  "  but  a  little 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    IMMORTALITY. 


453 


lower  than  God,"  we  cannot  think  of  him  as  sharing: 
Nature's  destiny.  "Poor  man,  God  made,  and  all  for 
that!"  Man's  very  greatness,  his  capacity  for  thought 
and  action,  and  for  ideals  that  always  put  his  attainments 
to  the  blush,  were  then  the  grimmest  of  all  ironies,  con- 
trived to  mock  him  into  despair.  "  What  a  piece  of  work 
is  a  man  !  How  noble  in  reason  !  how  infinite  in  faculties  ! 
in  form  and  moving,  how  express  and  admirable !  in 
action,  how  like  an  angel!  in  apprehension,  how  like  a 
God !  the  beauty  of  the  world !  the  paragon  of  animals ! 
And  yet,  to  me,  what  is  this  quintessence  of  dust  ? "  ^  The 
shadow  of  that  contradiction  would  lie  across  man's  life 
in  the  present,  and  darken  all  its  joy;  the  knowledge 
of  that  ultimate  Failure  would  make  all  success  unreal. 
Well  might  we  wish  that  we  had  never  heard  of  "  those 
ineffable  things  which,  if  they  may  not  make  man's  happi- 
ness, must  make  man's  woe,"  ^  had  never  been  "  summoned 
out  of  nothingness  into  illusion,  and  evolved  but  to  aspire 
and  to  decay ! "  ^ 

The  question  of  Immortality  is  the  question  of  the 
reality  or  illusoriness  of  the  moral  life.  It  is  only 
another  aspect  of  the  question  discussed  in  last  chapter 
— viz.,  whether  "  morality  is  the  nature  of  things,"  whether 

^  Hamlet,  act  ii.  sc.  2. 

-  Myers,  '  Science  and  a  Future  Life,'  70. 

2  Ibid.,  75.  Cf.  Thomas  Davidson,  "Ethics  of  an  Eternal  Being" 
('  International  Journal  of  Ethics,'  April  1893) :  "  Sense,  as  such,  has  a  very- 
limited  range,  and  hence  its  correlate,  instinct,  can  be  satisfied  with  very 
finite  things.  Intellect,  on  the  contrary,  from  its  very  nature,  knows  no 
limits  ;  and  hence  its  correlate,  will,  can  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less 
than  the  infinite.  If  that  infinite  were  unattainable,  man's  gifts  of  intelli- 
gence and  will  would  be  the  cruellest  of  mockeries,  and  human  life  the 
saddest  of  tragedies." 


./' 


/ 


.^' 


454 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


\ 


Personal 
Immor- 
tality. 


the  Moral  Ideal  has  its  correlate  in  universal  Eeality. 
Here,  once  more,  the  good  man  gives  hostages  to  fortune, 
and  casts  on  the  universe  the  burden  of  completing  his 
efforts  after  an  End  too  great  to  be  attainable  in  the 
present.  He  trusts  that  what  he  has  done  shall  not  be 
undone  by  the  Universal  Power,  since  he  believes  it  to  be 
"  a  Power  that  makes  for  righteousness."  Were  it  not  so, 
life  would  lose  its  meaning,  and,  with  the  discovery  of 
the  hollowness  of  its  make-believe,  all  earnestness  of 
moral  purpose  would  be  exchanged,  in  an  earnest  nature, 
for  cynicism  and  despair. 

3.  But  it  is  denied  that  personal  immortality  is  the 
necessary  completion  of  the  moral  life.  Our  attitude  to 
this  question  must  depend  upon  our  attitude  to  the  pre- 
vious question  of  the  Moral  Ideal.  The  ideal  life,  we  have 
found,  can  be  determined  only  by  a  consideration  of  the 
nature  of  the  being  whose  life  we  are  considering.  Des- 
tiny and  life,  therefore,  ultimately  depend  on  nature. 
And  the  view  which  we  have  been  led  to  adopt  is  that 
man  is,  in  his  deepest  nature,  a  Person,  a  Self  whose  total 
being,  rational  and  sentient,  is  expressed  in  the  activity 
of  will.  The  Moral  Ideal,  therefore,  we  have  inferred,  is 
an  ideal  of  character;  the  typical  and  characteristic 
activity  of  man  is  Self-realisation,  "  realisation  of  self  by 
self."  Man's  "  proper  business  "  is  in  the  inner  world  of 
his  own  being,  not  in  the  outer  world  of  material  produc- 
tion. Producer  and  product  are  here  one;  the  moral 
activity  is  an  end-in-itself,  or,  if  it  has  a  further  end,  it 
is  only  the  acquisition  of  a  higher  capacity  for  such 
activity.    What  is  really  being  accomplished  in  the  moral 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    IMMORTALITY. 


455 


,  / 


life  is,  therefore,  always  an  invisible  and  spiritual  result ; 
whatever  the  man  seems  to  be  doing  or  making,  he  is 
really  always  making  himself,  actualising  the  potentiality 
of  his  own  nature.  The  Moral  Ideal  is  an  ideal  of  char- 
acter, and  this  personal  ideal  implies  a  personal  destiny. 

The  problem  of  Immortality  is  thus  the  old  Aristotelian 
problem  of  the  Opportunity  of  the  moral  life.  We  must 
repeat,  though  in  a  somewhat  different  sense,  Aristotle's 
demand  for  "  length  of  days  "  as  the  condition  of  a  com- 
plete moral  life.  No  finite  increase  of  time  would  suffice 
for  the  accomplishment  of  an  infinite  task.  And  the 
moral  task  is,  we  have  concluded,  an  infinite  one ;  the 
capacity  of  the  Self  which  we  are  called  upon  to  realise 
is  an  infinite  capacity.  The  reality  of  the  moral  life 
implies  the  possibility  of  attaining  its  ideal ;  a  potenti- 
ality that  cannot  be  actualised  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
But  the  opportunity  is  not  given  in  this  life,  however  well 
and  wisely  this  life  is  used,  for  the  full  activity  of  all  man's 
powers,  intellectual,  aesthetic,  or  volitional.  At  the  end 
of  the  best  and  fullest  life,  must  we  not  "contrast  the 
petty  Done,  the  Undone  vast "  ?  And  even  if,  in  the  eye 
of  the  world,  the  accomplishment  seems  great  and  the 
life  complete,  shall  not  the  worker  himself  inscribe  upon 
it  "  Unfinished "  ?  He  knows,  if  others  know  not,  the 
unrealised  potentiality  that  is  in  him,  the  character  yet 
unexpressed  and  waiting  for  its  more  perfect  expression, 
the  capacity  yet  unfulfilled  and  waiting  for  its  fulfilment. 
If  we  add  to  this  consideration  of  the  universal  human 
lack  of  moral  opportunity  the  consideration  of  the  in- 
equality of  opportunity  in  the  present,  and  the  sacrifice 
which  many  make  of  the  opportunity  they   have   that 


/' 


456 


METAPHYSICAL   IMPLICATIONS. 


they  may  enlarge  the  opportunity  of  others, — above  all, 
if  we  think  that,  without  a  Future  Life,  not  only  is  the 
opportunity  of  further  moral  progress  suddenly  and  for 
ever  foreclosed,  but  the  work  already  so  laboriously  done 
is  all  undone,  the  fruits  of  moral  experience,  so  care- 
fully gathered  and  garnered,  are  all  wasted,  the  character 
so  hardly  acquired  is  all  dissolved,  and,  in  a  moment,  is  as 
though  it  had  never  been, — are  we  not  compelled,  in  the 
interests  of  clear  and  coherent  thought  about  the  meaning 
of  our  life,  to  postulate  the  Immortality  of  our  moral 
beinc^?  Has  not  the  moral  individual,  as  such,  a  claim 
upon  the  universe  ?  Is  not  this  the  axiom  of  his  life  ? 
Would  not  annihilation  mean  moral  contradiction? 

But,  it  is  said,  the  completion  of  the  work  of  the 
individual  is  in  the  larger  life  of  the  race;  the  true 
immortality  is  not  personal  but  "corporate."  The  race 
shall  live  on,  though  the  individual  passes  away;  and 
he  oucrht  to  be  content  to  work  for  the  race  rather 
than  for  himself.  Other  battles  will  be  fought,  and  other 
victories  won.  He  has  played  his  part,  and  it  is  time  for 
him  to  make  his  exit ;  why  should  he  linger  on  the  stage  ? 
The  individual  falls,  like  a  withered  leaf,  from  the  tree  of 
Life ;  but  the  tree  itself  will  feel  the  renewing  breath  of 
spring.  It  is  through  the  constant  death  of  the  individual 
that  to  the  race  there  comes  a  continual  resurrection. 
As  for  the  individual,  he  ought  to  rest  with  satisfaction 
in  the  anticipation  of  that  moral  influence  which  he 
bequeaths  to  his  successors,  and  find  in  that  influence 
his  real  immortality.  This  changed  view  of  immortality, 
it  is  insisted,  "  lends  life  a  new  meaning.  The  good  we 
strive  for  lives  no  longer  in  a  world  of  dreams  on  the 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   IMMORTALITY. 


457 


other  side  of  the  grave ;  it  is  brought  down  to  earth  and 
waits  to  be  realised  by  human  hands,  through  human 
labour.  We  are  called  on  to  forsake  the  finer  egoism 
that  centred  all  its  care  on  self-salvation,  for  a  love  of 
our  own  kind  that  shall  triumph  over  death,  and  leave 
its  impress  on  the  joy  of  generations  to  come."^ 

In  answer  to  this,  I  would  remark  (1)  that  such  an 
argument  is  strictly  irrelevant  to  the  question  at  issue. 
Can  a  life  which,  throughout  its  course,  is  personal,  end  by 
becoming  impersonal  or  by  passing  over  to  other  persons  ? 
The  question  is  whether  the  individual  has,  in  these  brief 
earthly  years,  lived  his  life,  and  realised  his  total  Good. 
Moral  progress  is  progress  in  character,  and  character 
cannot  be  transferred ;  if  at  death  the  Self  ceases  to  exist, 
the  task  of  its  life  is  ended — and  undone.  (2)  The  Good 
of  others  is,  like  my  own,  a  personal  and  individual  Good, 
and  if  there  is  no  permanent  Good  for  me  neither  is  there 
for  them.  Thus  the  Good  of  others  to  which  we  had 
wedded  our  souls  is,  like  our  own,  destined  to  disintegra- 
tion. Has  the  transition  for  the  individual  to  the  race  ac- 
complished what  it  promised — viz.,  the  substitution  of  an 
abiding  Good  for  the  perishing  Good  of  the  individual  life  ? 
The  answer  is.  Yes ;  the  permanence  of  the  Good  of  Hu- 
manity is  founded  in  the  unity  and  solidarity  of  the  race. 
We  are  not  to  work  even  for  other  individuals  (at  least  not 
for  any  particular  individual  or  group  of  individuals),  but 
for  the  Eace.  This  forces  us  to  ask  (3)  whether  the  race 
itself  is  permanent  ?  The  writer  just  quoted  from  raises 
this  question,  and  answers  :  "  The  question  as  to  the  final 
destruction  of  the  human  race,  whether  by  sudden  catas- 

^  C.  M.  "Williams,  *  A  Review  of  Evolutional  Ethics,'  580. 


458 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


trophe  or  slow  decay,  can  little  affect  happiness,  at  pres- 
ent, or  for  very  many  ages  to  come.  .  .  .  The  pessimist  is 
fond  of  making  much  of  the  final  end  of  our  planet ;  but 
the  healthy  and   successful  will   be   happy  in   spite   of 
future  ages,  and  the  extent  and  degree  of  happiness  will 
continue  to  increase  for  sucH  an  immense  period  of  time 
that  there  is  no  reason  for  considering  the  destruction  of 
our  race  as  exerting  any  important  influence  on  ethical 
theory."  i     But  we  must  face  this  future,  and  think  our 
way  through  it,  to  the  darkness  and  nothingness  beyond. 
Would  not  that  Beyond  turn  all  the  joy  of  the  present  to 
dust  and  ashes  in  our  grasp  ?     Or  must  we  cease  to  think, 
as  the  writer  seems   to  intimate  that  the  healthy  and 
successful  will  do.    That  we  cannot,  without  being  false  to 
our  highest  nature.      Is  this,  then,  the  "  Future  of  the 
Species'"  for  which  we  are  to  work  ?     All  this  progress, 
progress— towards  Nothing  !    Surely,  if  life  is  worth  living, 
there  must  be  something  that  does  not  suffer  shock  and 
change.     But  nowhere  can  that  something  be  found  save 
in  the  spiritual  sphere ;  only  character  is  permanent. 

The  Absolute  Idealist  will  still  'refuse  to  entertain  the 
plea  for  individual  immortality,  on  the  ground  that  eter- 
nity belongs  to  Thought,  not  to  the  individual  thinker, 
since,  truly  understood,  the  finite  Self  is  not  a  Self  at  all, 
but  must  be  resolved  either  into  the  universal  Thinker  or 
into  universal  Thought.  This  raises  anew  the  questions 
which  we  have  discussed  in  more  than  one  connection 
already:  (1)  whether  we  can  conceive  of  Thought  without 
a  Thinker ;  (2)  whether,  admitting  the  necessity  of  a  Sub- 
ject of  thought,  we  must  not  admit  the  reality  of  the 

^  Loc.  cit. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   IMMORTALITY. 


459 


finite  subject ;  and  (3)  whether,  in  the  moral  life,  if  not  in 
the  intellectual,  we  must  not  assert  the  relative  indepen- 
dence of  the  finite  Self,  the  active  if  not  the  intellectual 
independence  of  man.  Our  answers  to  these  questions 
about  the  ultimate  meaning  of  our  life  in  the  present  must 
determine  our  answer  to  the  question  about  our  future 
destiny.  If  a  regard  for  moral  reality  forbids  us  to  re- 
solve the  present  life  of  man  into  the  life  of  God,  such  a 
resolution  in  the  future  must  be  no  less  illegitimate. 

The  Idealistic  objection  to  the  immortality  of  the  indi- 
vidual seems  to  me  to  rest  upon  two  misunderstandings : 
(1)  the  misinterpretation  of  individuality  and  of  finitude 
in  general,  which  finds  expression  in  the  principle  Omnis 
determinatio  negatio  est.  Spinoza,  subject  as  he  is  in  large 
measure  to  this  principle,  suggests  the  deeper  truth — viz., 
that  the  finite,  instead  of  merely  negating,  realises  the 
Infinite,  that  the  persevera7'e  in  esse  suo  of  the  finite  is  also 
the  "perseverance"  of  the  Infinite  in  its  proper  being. 
And  we  have  found  that,  in  the  moral  life  as  we  know  it, 
the  finite  principle  of  individuality  does  not  contradict 
the  infinite  principle  of  personality.  Why,  in  the  future 
more  than  in  the  present,'  should  the  finite  contradict  the 
Infinite  ?  (2)  The  objection  rests  upon  a  confusion  of 
moral  with  intellectual  unity  and  identity.  The  ethical 
unity,  which  consists  in  identity  of  will,  implies,  we  have 
seen,  a  real  independence  of  will ;  apart  from  such  inde- 
pendence, there  could  be  no  surrender  of  the  finite  will  to 
the  Infinite.  The  maintenance  of  the  ethical  relation  be- 
tween God  and  man  implies,  therefore,  the  persistence  of 
the  human  will  or  Self-hood  in  the  future  as  in  the  pres- 
ent.    The  dissolution  of  this  would  mean  the  dissolution 


460 


METAPHYSICAL    IMPLICATIONS. 


of  the  ethical  life,  and  the  grounds  on  which  we  refuse  to 
accept  this  have  already  been  sufficiently  indicated. 

Our  Origin  and  our  Destiny  are  one ;  it  is  because  we 
come  from'^God  that  we  must  go  to  him,  and  can  only  rest 
in  fellowship  with  him  who  is  the  Father  of  our  spirits. 
That  fellowship— the  fellowship  of  will  with  Will— in  the 
present  is  our  best  pledge  of  its  continuance  in  the  future. 
The  fellowship  with  the  Eternal  cannot  but  be  eternal, 
and  such  fellowship  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  moral 
life.  God  is  the  Home  of  his  children's  spirits,  and  he 
would  not  be  God  if  he  banished  any  from  his  presence, 
nor  would  man  be  man  if  he  could  reconcile  himself  to 
the  thought  of  such  an  exile. 


,    L 


THE     EN^D. 


PRTNTED  BY  '♦flLLIAM   BLACKWOOD   AND  SOKS. 


UM I L    UUL 


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